The Little Change
by KyDanson
Summary: How would you react if you fell into a dingy old pool only to wake up to three faces, one being the avatar. You'd shit bricks that's what, mainly because, how in the hell is it possible they can move water with just a mere thought? Deanis will bring along joking and smart ass remarks to the story, pestering Sokka along the way. Genres: Adventure, Humor, and romance
1. Chapter 1: The Swamp

**Hello all who have opened my very first story and are thinking about reading this. All I have to say is enjoy, and R&amp;R would be dank. **

**-KyDanson**

**I Don't own Avatar, Only Deanis and her sassy maid.**

**Words: 7,635**

**Chapter 1: The Swamp**

**= ~ '""' ~ =**

Waking up every week day ten minutes before school starts isn't the best way to start your morning. My way of getting ready for school is changing my clothes, and putting my ratty hair in a ponytail, than taking my time to get to school. Often times I'm late, but it's not going to ruin anything important. These ways of mornings is a lot like my life style. During school, everything is the same; I go to advanced English first period, falling asleep a few minutes later. Than it is my other dull classes again, I sleep in. during lunch I usually eat with the burnt outs who could give a care for anything besides themselves. As far as you can see, I am a very boring person who just cherishes sleep a little more than the average person.

**= ~ '""' ~ =**

Light peeked through the blinds, making me blink twice whilst waking up. I yawn and look at my clock, one in the afternoon. I groan and roll over onto the floor from my bed. Stretching my arms, and yawning again, I think about the day ahead of me. Then I remember, nothing is planned for the day ahead of me. Smiling at the news, I plop back into bed, only to hear.

"Deanis Ann Rodry! It is one in the afternoon; you can sleep when you're dead!"

I pull the pillow over my head and mumble,

"Yeah yeah…"

The soft sheets remind me of rolling sea in a slow motion of serenity. My eyes flutter shut again, thinking about the ocean breeze and the salty air that I used to live by when I was young. The ocean was always a dark blackish gray this time of year, churning with white caps bouncing up and down. Soon I go into that blissful dullness between being awake, and almost asleep. Until, the blankets are ripped right out of my curled hands, to reveal a bright light.

"What did I damn say Deanis? You can sleep when you are dead! Are you dead? I dun' think not! You better get your small ass out of bed or so help me I will slap you into next week!"

"Laaavvveaaa." I ground out between a yelp and a mumble. "Just ten more minutes." I try reaching for the oceanic blankets (with closed eyes might I add) only to have my arms slapped away, making my eyes snap open.

"So help me, I will damn pull you out of this bed."

My eyes adjust to see Lavea standing with her dark arms crossed with the blankets strewn across the floor. I yawn and scratch my raggedy dark red hair (dyed of course) and stretch my legs to a toe curl. Lavea rolls her eyes and comments,

"Stop the theatrics girl, we have business to do."

She moves across the room to the window and flings the curtains open to reveal the hiding orange sunlight. I shield my eyes and blunder out,

"Hey, I just woke up."

She turns to me and crosses her arms out and gets her "no nonsense face" and replies,

"You know damn well that I will not listen to your whinin'."

"Who's working for whom…" I mumble quietly out. Lavea looks at me with her stink eye and asks, "What was that?"

"Nothing!" I reply cheerfully, knowing full well she has inkling to what I said.

Levea clears her throat while picking up my dirty clothes all clustered on the floor in miscellaneous places.

"What's up?" I ask her knowing that she has something important to say.

"Since there are only a handful of workers today, I need you to do a small itty bitty favor."

"Okay, what type of _itty bitty _favor?" I question back in the same tone she used. Chuckling, Levea looks me in the eye and asks,

"Can you go to the old pool house and grab chlorine? The main pool is running out, and I dun't have time to do it today."

"I can't possibly do that! I just did my nails? How could I soil myself?" Wagging my eyebrows and acting highly royal while saying this, I flutter my eyes at her in a dreary fashion. She just looks at me, with a look that clearly states she is not in the mood for my jokes.

"Yeah yeah, I'll do it. Jeez take a joke in a while…" She just "harrumphs" her way out of my room.

Literally rolling myself out of bed, I grab my brush, scramble through my morning routine (which is fairly quicker than normal girls) than out the door to do the _itty bitty _favor. I run through my house, which is an old estate built somewhere in the 1800s with a marvelous backstory behind it that I could care less through the kitchen that leads to the back door, I swipe a roll from the basket, stuffing into my mouth hoping I don't choke on it while running.

Outside, the trees are flowing in the strong breeze with birds zipping to and fro. The blue sky, a deep indigo, was a wonderful plus. With the bright sun unnaturally out this time of year. Walking now, enjoying the view of the nice March weather.

"Hello misses Deanis."

I turn a ninety degree angle and spot Jim, the families Gardner. "Hey Jim. what you up to today?" I ask him while swallowing the last bit of roll.

"Jus' gardening, doin' me job. Don't you have fencing today with Damian?"

I ponder a few seconds, thinking about my daily schedule. I had tae kwon do yesterday, karate the day before, some other defense class earlier this week… My parents are very paranoid I will get attacked when they aren't around (which is all the time)

"Nah. It's Saturday." I shrug the question off with a hand wave. "Anyways I gotta go and do an _itty bitty _favor for Levea. Later"

Walking away, I could hear Jim mumble,

"I swore I saw fencing today on Damien's list…"

Smiling to myself I whisper,

"You did, I just don't want to do fencing today."

On the outskirts of my huge yard, there is the old guest house that used to be the old main house. The woods around it have a series of overgrown trails that lead to the old servant's quarters, the pool house, and some other old places I don't really need to know about. The old house comes into view between the willow trees. Its old white paneling turned brown and grimy from years of hard winters and grueling amounts of rain. The windows of the old house are filled with green mold between the panes and some windows are completely black. I trot to the edge of the yard to where the trees begin. The trail to the pool house is completely covered in vines with beginning buds of flowers for spring. Sun patches shine through the cracks in the trees leaves, leaving a warm glow whenever I walk through them. I skip across the tree vines and dodge low branches. Whistling along the way. I feel a strange whimsical and calming feeling I haven't felt in a long time.

"Maybe I should go outside more…" I say to myself, pondering the effects of the outside world.

Through the end of the trail, I can see the beginnings of a building. The Pool house had vines growing all along the walls, with flowers blooming in every direction. Me being me, I didn't question that there is blooming flowers on the pool house, and none on the trail, yet they are the same vines. The door to the pool house was closed tight. Looking up and down, I can see the cracks and erosion has taken its toll on it. I try the doorknob, but it breaks off.

"Thanks Levea…" I mumble

Without thinking, I step back a few paces, raise my leg for a high kick, and smash my foot through the door, resulting in my foot getting stuck in the old door.

"That played out a lot differently in my head."

Grumbling, I inch my foot slowly through the old door, getting it out slowly.

"Okay, let's try this again."

Instead of kicking the middle of the door, I aim to kick where the hinges are located. The door falls down with a bang, breaking and cracking in the process.

"That's what I thought you stupid door."

I step around the door and peer into the dark pool house. The vines managed to break into the pool house through cracks in the old tiles around the walls. The flowers blooming on the vines gave off a peculiar glow look, adding a majestic feel to the old house. The strangest thing about this room was the pool itself. The vines went into the water of the pool; along the vines are the blue glowing flowers. The water had a bluish greenish glowing vibe to it.

"Almost like Fern Gully in real life." I mutter.

The glowing seemed to intensify the closer I got to it. I didn't realize that all the sounds from the outside disappeared. No more birds chirping or frogs croaking. The wind itself just stopped. But I didn't notice, being too mesmerized by the glowing water. Another big thing I didn't notice was a hose cord right in front of my feet.

Tripping over the hose cord woke me up from my trance, and me being me, instead of screaming in fear of falling into a very old pool full of leaves and god knows what, I say,

"What in the holy hell is-"

"Splash!" I fall in the water. I try kicking up to the surface but my legs get entwined with the vines and lilies deeply emerged in the pool. This is when I start panicking.

Grabbing franticly for anything to pull me up to the surface, I go further and further into the depths. The glowing is no longer a light. I am in dark murkiness. I struggle with the vines and try to keep the air from escaping my mouth. My mouth opens in silent scream letting my precious amount of air out into the water. Water sears into my lungs. I could feel myself passing into blissful oblivion.

My last few thoughts running through my head,

"I could have done so much more."

**= ~ '""' ~ =**

"Hey! I think she is coming around!"

"Can you hear me?"

"Did you get all the water out of her?"

"For the last time Sokka, I did."

Feeling a shaking motion, I remembered when Lavea used to rock me to sleep when I was younger. Suddenly, I feel a motion rise from my stomach. I turn over, and start Coughing out large quantities of water I didn't even know I could hold, I blink a few times. Light introduces my eyes, blinding me. I groan out, "It's too early."

"She said something!" A young boy's voice exclaims.

"I knew I could save her."

I hear a thump than a girls voice, "Sokka you didn't do anything!"

"OW! I helped watch her! You didn't have to punch me!"

I crack my eyes open, and see three different kids. One was bald with a tattoo on his head, another had a pony tail, and the last was a girl with the bluest eyes I have ever seen. I raise myself to my elbows and look at all of them. On a second glance, I notice the smaller things. Their weird clothes threw me off, than the boy with the tattoo having monk's clothes that were drenched. I could notice that the older looking kids were brother and sister, sporting matching garbs.

"Where am I?" I mumble out. Looking around me, I noticed a swamp. Slowly my eyes got wider and wider the more I took in my surroundings.

"Where's the pool?" I slur out loud.

"Um, I don't know what pool you are talking about… or where the closest pool would be… but do you know where you are?" asks the tallest one with the ponytail.

"Not in my pool house is my first guess. So I have no idea."

The three kids look at each other, having a silent agreement that I wouldn't know how to decipher.

"We actually don't exactly know where we are either…" replies the small bald kid.

"We were hoping you did." The girl with the blue eyes asks.

"Can you tell us anything at all?" asks the ponytail guy. Sitting up, I notice the girl put a hand on my shoulder. I raise my eyebrow at the unfamiliar contact, resulting in her retracting her hand to her side.

"All I know is I was drowning in a weird glowing pool, than waking up to your voices."

"We saw you in the swamp, just floating in the water." the girl pauses a moment and whispers. "We thought you were dead."

The three kids stare at me with intense eyes.

"Okay… So you guys have no idea where we are at, and you wear weird clothes. And, a fricken ten year old has tattoos." I rasp out.

They all share quick glances among each other. The tattoo kid finally asks,

"You don't know who I am?"

"Am I supposed to?"

The girl gets closer to me and whispers, "He is the avatar."

I raise my eyebrows and just sit silently waiting for more. The kids looks at me with surprised faces.

"What in the hell is an _avatar_?" I yell out, breaking them out of their silence.

"Were you born underneath a ro-" smack! The girl smacked the ponytail boy in the back of the head. She then leaves the ponytail guy to rubbing the back of his head and says to me in a sweet voice.

"The avatar is the master of all four elements."

"Like a yin yang?" I question.

The tattoo kid laughs at my question. "That is not what yin-yang means!"

I shrug my shoulders in a "hay, do you think a care?" type of motion.

"Maybe she hit her head to hard." The ponytail guy says. "Ponytail guy, maybe you guys should explain better." I retort to him, shutting him up.

The girl laughs and the boy with the tattoo pats the back of the ponytail guy's shoulder.

"Well firsts things first, I'm Katara, and this is my stupid older brother, Sokka" She motions to the pouting Ponytail Guy. "And this is Aang, the avatar."

All three look at me. I stare at them.

"Oh! You want my name? I'm Deanis." They raise their eyebrows.

Tattoo ki- Aang mumbles, "Dee...Deenies. Deanis." I nod at him, letting him know he got my name.

"I am guessing you guys have never heard of that name."

"Well, we have never seen red hair before either. Or dark eyes like yours." replies Pony- Sokka. I hold my hand to my head. Thinking. The clothes, the subtle clues, all made even more questions.

"Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore." I mumble.

"What?"

"Nothing, nothing." I reply back with a wave of my hand.

"Can you bend?" Katara Asks.

"Well I can be flexible if that's what you are mean…" They all have questionable looks on their faces. "That's not what you were questioning...what do you mean?"

The girl's eyes practically pop out of their sockets.

"You don't know what bending means?" She squeaks.

"Am I supposed too?"

"Are you supposed too? If you haven't lived underneath a rock where did you live?"

Sokka exclaims with his arms swinging. I scratch the back of my neck, nervous underneath their excruciating stares.

"So what is _bending_?" I ponder out, breaking their trances. Katara and Aang glance at each other. They rise to their feet and take martial arts stances. The movements I recognized, but the effects of the movements left me, in terms of words,

"_Shitting a brick"_

**=*~`""`~*=**

All is silent to where you could hear water droplets falling into the swamp.

My mind was a blank, with my mouth gaping open in astonishment. They just moved the water with their minds! No, wait, the water flowed whenever they moved with their martial arts stances.

My mouth was opened in a wide O shape.

"She wasn't lying; she really didn't know what bending was!" Sokka pointed at me while he shouted.

Katara and Aang look at me with faces of concern.

"I think we broke her." Aang speculates.

Katara wore a worried expression on her face while Sokka waves his hand in front of my face.

I slowly get up. I take a deep breath and yell,

"That was so freaking awesome! I mean one minute, water was here, than there! Just from your mind to your...Water! I mean, Wow!" as I was yelling this, I made hand gestures and did their moves, copying the martial arts stances.

"How can you already do the water bending stances?" Aang asks with a look of disbelief.

"I already know martial arts!" I said offhandedly while still doing the moves.

I didn't even notice them looking at me with skepticism.

After a little while of me trying to do the moves, hoping for water to be moving I yell,

"How do you move the water?"

Aang and Katara look at each other while Sokka places a hand on my shoulder,

"You have to be born a bender. We non benders have to stick together." Sokka says.

"That's stupid." I reply with my arms crossed. Sokka laughs while Katara says to Aang,

"I think those two will get along well…" Aang nods quickly and looks around us.

I peer around following his lead, looking for anything out of place. Strangely this swamp reminded me of my weird glowy pool. There was a huge tree by us. I mean, this tree could make redwood trees pee their pants in fright, if they were humans of course. The swamp had this feel to it, a trance like feeling, resulting in more unanswered questions zooming through my head.

"What is with this swamp? And what exactly is bending? Why am I here?" I growl in frustration with my hands gripping my newly noticed ratty hair.

Sokka inches away from my surprise episode of frustration while Aang and Katara share yet another look to one another, making me mutter,

"Oh just get it over with and kiss already."

Aang blushes madly while Katara looked aghast. Sokka just looks back and forth between Aang and Katara, trying to get why I muttered that.

Katara breathes in than out and noticeably changes the subject,

"To answer your questions, we were sucked by a tornado, making us stuck in the swamp from losing our sky bison. Bending is the ability to move the elements. There are four elements, water, fire, earth, and air. The avatar can bend all four and can bring peace among the four nations. And I have no idea why or how you are here."

I rub scratch the back of my head aggressively with all this new knowledge.

"I am guessing you can bend water?" I ask Katara.

She nods. "But Sokka can't even though he is your brother?" She nods again.

I look away from her and say, "Sokka didn't get the good gene I am guessing."

"Hay! I have perfectly good genes!" Snaps Sokka.

"So you got caught in a tornado, in a forest, and didn't die?" I ask skeptically ignoring Sokka.

"Yeah! I lost my sky bison Appa! Have you seen him?"

I stare the kid in the face and replied slowly,

"You find me passed out in a swamp. Than I have no idea what you guys say most the time, and you ask me where… your sky bison is?"

Aang looked ashamed with my patronizing tone while Katara retorts,

"He is just a kid who wants his sky bison!"

I roll my eyes at her babying of him and reply with a shrug.

Sokka cleared his throat and said breaking the tiff,

"Well, a sky bison is a huge thing that has six legs and can fly."

"I think I died and went to some weird world where everybody is on shrooms." I mumble to myself. Sokka raises an eyebrow at my mutter.

Without a warning, a huge crash of sea weed erupts from the water, revealing a big monster of seaweed with a small wooden mask. I hear screams from the other three and yell excitedly,

"Is this bending too? This is awesome!"

I glimpse at the other three and saw that they were huddled together in fear. Sokka's eyes widened towards me and he yells,

"Look out!"

I turn around and notice at the last minute a vine slamming into my chest, knocking me off my feet to fall into the water of the swamp that I came out not to long ago. I stare back at the surface of the water with the thought,

"I am really starting to hate water."

Weirdly I could feel the water moving around me, bringing me closer to the surface. Once to the surface, I break for air, gasping. I didn't notice that the water was still moving around me, bringing me closer to Katara. Until I was right by Katara in the water did I finally notice and make the connections she bended me from drowning.

"Thanks! I owe you one!" I shout to her over all the noise from the onslaught happening around me. She nods her head and leaves me to help Aang and Sokka, maybe just to help Aang fight the seaweed monster.

Watching them fight was like nothing I have ever seen. With all the movies, TV shows, and magazines, these actions were the most amazing thing I have ever laid eyes on. I felt like I was in a trance watching Aang send his air wisps into the seaweed monster to save his friends. They fought well together (Katara and Aang, Sokka just got attacked). In the corner of my eye, I noticed a blur. I turn my head and see a figure walking behind a tree. I narrow my eyebrows. From what I have concluded, these kids should have been the only people in the swamp. My hands start to sweat. I whisper to myself,

"I don't run to danger. I run away please don't go Deanis. You're not one of those stupid people in horror movies looking under the bed." I look back at the fighting and look back to where the figure went. I sigh. Walking to where the figure walking behind the tree saying to myself,

"You are so stupid Deanis."

Approaching the tree, I stop, breathing in than out, getting myself ready. I get my martial arts skills ready for action, and walk slowly around the back of the tree. I jump with a cry to surprise the figure, but it wasn't there.

I drop my stance and look bewilderingly around me.

"What in the hol-"

The figure was at least ten feet away from me. His back turned. He had short hair with dark green clothing built for pheasants (from what I can guess) from the waist down was covered with bushes. I gulp and ask,

"Um hey there… did you… drown too?"

The figure didn't seem to hear me. I refused to get any closer to him. I am in a weird swamp, hell in a weird world, and suddenly a guy shows up out of nowhere. No way am I getting anywhere near this guy. The figure moves his head slowly to me revealing thin golden eyes. His face was very handsome, but what surprised me more, was when his whole face was revealed to me. On the left side of his face was a very gruesome scar, dark red closer to his eye, with pink surrounding it. My eyes widening, when his whole was face clear to me.I noticed how angry and sad his eyes looked. The eyes revealed so much about him, yet nothing about him. He pointed at me then said,

"Find the fire within."

As he said this, he drifted away from me, closer to the shadows of the trees.

"Deanis!"

I looked to the direction the voice came from, and then looked back to the scared boy, to find nothing there. He disappeared with a blink of an eye. I swiveled my head all around me, looking to find the boy in the dense swamp forest. Nothing stirred besides the fighting from behind me. When I looked behind me, I saw my foot steps in the mud, but none from the boy. My hairs on my back raised, realizing I could have just introduced myself to a ghost. Taking one more glance behind me, I run back to where the fighting of the seaweed monster commenced.

When I finally saw what was going on, I could see Aang and Katara tiring themselves out, and a vine gripping Sokka's ankle, hanging him upside down.

I couldn't help let a laugh escape me at Sokka's misfortune.

Fed up, Aang airbended at the seaweed monster, slicing some more vines, but sadly, the monster would not relent.

"Come on guys you got this!" I cheered from my viewpoint.

"You could be helping us!" Screamed Sokka as he sliced another vine while hanging upside down.

"Nah I think you are handling this." I yelled back with a thumbs up.

Katara, with a final waterbending slice, cuts the mask of the seaweed monster. The whole top half of the ominous wooden mask falls off. But once again, the monster does not stop.

"Why did you call me here if you wanted to kill us?" Demanded Aang with authority I didn't know a little kid could possess.

"Wait!" Yelled an unknown voice. "I didn't call you here!"

All of us glimpse at each other in confusion, the other three in offensive stances still.

"We were flying over and I heard something calling to me, telling me to land." recalls Aang.

Everyone seemed to lower their stances, but not dropping them. The seaweed monster unraveled itself to reveal a man with a huge gut and well, a loincloth as his clothing. His hair was gray, and unnaturally sticking up around his sides like he wears a hat.

"He's the avatar. Stuff like this happens to us a lot."

The big bellied man's eyes widened and his whole demeanor changes from confusion to enlightenment.

"The avatar? Come with me!"

Everyone looks at each other; one by one they drop their stances.

"Peace prevails!" I yell enthusiastically.

Just noticing I was here, the three kids stare at me. Katara rolls her eyes while Aang smiles. The man narrows his eyes at me but doesn't say anything.

"You didn't even help at all!" Shrieks Sokka.

"I can't bend, so what help would I be." I replied with innocence.

"I can't bend either and I helped!" Yells Sokka.

"Just looked like you were attacking vines to me." I cut back to him.

Aang cleared his throat and looked back at the big bellied man.

"Take us where you need to take us." He said.

Everyone seemed fine with just walking away with a strange loincloth wearing man besides me. If a man came up to me wearing a loincloth and asked,

"Come with me."

I would kick him in the shin and run away. But since everyone just ignored that we were just fighting this guy and walked away with him, leaving me with mouth agape and my arms out in a fashion saying, "_Really_?"

"Come on Deanis, stop being so slow!" Aang calls back to me.

Groaning I trudge forward, hoping that these kids know what they are doing.

The man leads us to the huge tree from earlier. We all stand around the man in silence until Katara asks,

"So, who are you?"

"I protect the swamp from folks that wannna hurt it, like this fella with his big knife."

Sokka puts away his knife and says,

"See, completely reasonable. Not a monster, just a regular guy defending his home. Nothing mystical about it."

I frown at that. From my little experience in this swamp, everything about it screamed, _magic._

"Oh the swamp is a mystical place all right. It's sacred. I reached enlightenment right here under the banyan-grove tree. I heard it calling me, just like you did." Says the strange man while he sits down on the tree.

Sokka rolled his eyes and replies sarcastically,

"Sure you did. It seems real chatty."

I elbow Sokka from being rude to the guy. Sokka glares at me and whispers,

"Hey!"

I was looking at the guy like I did nothing, ignoring Sokka altogether.

The man raises his arms and points us to look around.

"See this whole swamp is actually just one tree spread out over miles. Branches spread and sink, take root, and spread some more. One big, living organism. Just like the entire world."

I raise my eyebrows. Thinking about what the man said. It kind of made sense, I guess. But I really wasn't going to take the teaching to heart from a man wearing a loincloth.

"I get how the tree is one big thing, but the whole world?" asks Aang skeptically.

I nod with his question and look back at big bellied man to explain his weird idea of the world and trees.

''Sure. You think you're any different from me or your friends or this tree? If you listen hard enough, you can hear every living thing breathing together. You can feel everything growing. We're all living together, even if most folks don't act like it. We all have the same roots and we are all branches of the same tree."

I lean in and whisper to Sokka,

"I think he may be a hippy."

Sokka whispers back,

"What's a hippy?"

I groan and just mutter,

"Nevermind."

I didn't notice when all of us started sitting around the bellied man. Everyone was eating up his weird information. Without really thinking I ask,

"So you are saying we all have hearts, lungs, bones, stuff like that," I was waving my hand while saying this,

"Basically, we all are the same. We don't need to judge someone by their color or whatever difference."

They all stare at me. The bellied man smiles at me and nods his head once.

"But, What did our visions mean?" Asks Katara. I raised my eyebrows and asked,

"What visions?"

"We all saw visions of some sorts earlier, before we saw you. Actually, we thought you were one at first, until we pulled you out of the water and you were real." Aang explains.

I just 'hm" to Aangs response and strangely am reminded of the guy with the jagged scar.

"In the swamp, we see visions of people we've lost, people we loved, folks we think are gone. But the swamp tells us they're not. We're still connected to them. Time is an illusion and so is death."

We sat quietly for a second. Sokka and Katara's faces were scrunched up in thought.

"But what about my vision? It was someone I had never met." asked Aang with confusion.

"Actually, I think I had a vision too." I comment. Everyone looked at me and Sokka asked in disbelief,

"When did you have a vision?"

"When Katara and Aang were fighting and you being unhelpful." I reply back.

Sokka scoffed and folded his arms. He reminded me of a teenage girl not getting the phone she wanted for her birthday.

"What did you see?" asked Katara.

"Well I saw a guy with angry golden eyes, yet they were so sad too. He said to me, 'find_ the fire within' _all ominous like." I didn't want to talk about the scar because I didn't want to admit it actually creeped me out, yet made me so sad for some weird reason. I really hate this world's mumbo jumbo.

The man in the loincloth looked at me, then looked back at Aang, answering his and my question,

"It was your visions; you tell me what you think."

Aang pondered lion's cloths words, finally he said in a voice of knowing,

"Time is an illusion. So it is someone we will meet."

The bellied man nods his head with a smile. I smiled, the man wanted Aang and I to come up with the answers himself. That sly son of a gun.

"Sorry to interrupt this lesson, but we need to find Momo and Appa." Sokka says like he isn't really sorry but wanted to get a move on.

Aang gets up with a start and says with a determined voice,

"I think I know how to find them." Aang kneels down and places his palm to the tree. "Everything is connected" Amazingly, energy travels from Aangs hand through the tree roots leading farther and farther away.

"Come we have to hurry!" While saying this, Aang jumps up and sprints off the direction his energy went.

I groan out,

"More running?"

I turn back with one last look to the big tree, and turn back around to follow everyone to wherever Aang was leading us.

**=*~`""`~*=**

Let me just say this one thing, I hate running. I may be in good shape from all my defense classes, but running or plain out sprinting with benders might I add, is a quick way to having a heart attack. Also, we are in a swamp. A hot swamp that makes you sweat bullets constantly. Another bad thing was, I was running behind Sokka of all people and the big bellied man! I felt like an old person that weighed 600 pounds compared to these people.

I was breathing so loudly I think Sokka looked back at me mistaking me for a animal or something.

When I was thinking about how that swamp water was looking pretty good, we were slowing down. My breathing picked up at the hope of stopping, maybe Katara can bend me some fresh water or Aang can blow some cool air on me. Or even better, Katara bends small water droplets to me while Aang blows cool air to me. I am such a great we stopped running I wheeze between breaths,

"Thank...huff... the lord."

I didn't notice when Aang and Katara disappeared until I heard a huge splash. I still had my hands on my knees with my back arched, trying to get my breath back when Sokka looked at me and said,

"You're not gonna die or anything right?"

I just nod my head and ask out,

"Where...huff...is Katara and...Aang?"

Sokka nods his head to the front of us. I could see boats being strewn about while rays of water destroyed them.

"What are they doing?" I wonder to Sokka.

"THey're getting Momo and Appa back from some hillbillies who want to eat them."

"Do they ever get tired?" I ask to myself.

I hear screams and lots and lots of water splashing. The swamp water was becoming almost like a raging ocean on stormy nights.

"Hey, you guys are waterbenders!" cries Katara a little ways away.

"You too! That means we're kin!" yells a hillbilly sounding voice. All the fighting ceased to go on.

Sometimes I wonder what goes through these kids heads when they just storm into a fight instead of talking it out like normal people.

The big bellied man walked ahead of Sokka and I to where everyone could see him.

"Hey Huu! How you been?" cries the same hillbilly voices that we were fighting to the big bellied man.

"You know, scared some folks, swung some vines, the usual."

Sokka raises his eyebrows and asks,

"Huu?"

Huu nods his head and motions for Sokka and I to come forward. Sokka and I glance at each other with him whispering,

"They're hillbillys."

I snicker back at him,

"They're your kin."

He shuts up and just keeps walking to Huu.

The swamp was what used to be filled with algae and leaves, but now was just muddy water that churned around from all the water bending. I kinda felt bad for all the frogs and whatever else lives in this section of swamp. The two new people in the clearing were also wearing loincloths like Huu and to add to their fashion, big old leaves on top of their heads. One of the new introduced swamp benders said to all of us,

"Come have some dinner with us! We have our camp not to far from here."

Katara, Aang, Sokka, and I glance at each other. I nod my head, hoping for some time to just sit down and die from all this exercise.

"Umm okay." Answers Aang nervously.

**=*~`""`~*=**

The camp was what I expected it to be. Kinda dingy with other loincloth wearing hillbillys. When we first entered the camp, some of the men eyed Katara and I with toothless smiles. She and I just looked at each other and whispered,

"Eww."

"Their thirsty." I whisper to her.

She just nods her little head like she understands what I'm saying.

There were huts with huge leaves covering the roofs. There also was many people residing in this camp that did not really care how much skin that was showing, and didn't know what hygiene is.

Now we were all sitting around a campfire, eating… Possum chicken. The two other swamp benders are named Tho and Due. Tho was a short and stumpy man and Due was the exact opposite with a long braid that would make most girls jealous.

"How you like that possum chicken?" Due asks Sokka.

"Tastes like arctic hen. So why were you guys so interested in eating Appa? You got plenty of those things running around." Sokka motions to the weird gator like fish thingys behind us.

After seeing Appa, I just gave up on trying to understand this world. I mean, how can an animal fly when it was the size of an elephant? There is also people who can move elements at their own will but I'm just going to ignore that abnormality. In my world, I have Miley Cyrus, so hey, who am I to judge?

"Shoot, you want me to eat old Slim? He's like a member of the family!" interjects Due while throwing the fish he had laying on a branch to old Slim. Old slims mouth opened wide and closed with a huge "chomp."

"Nice Slim!" Sokka nervously says while throwing a bug at the animal. The animals reaction reminded me of a cat. It didn't open its mouth for the bug as it bounced off its nose. Slim growled at Sokka, making Sokka cower from it.

"Oh he don't eat bugs! That's people food!"

I inch away from these backwoods people and question what else is people food in their views.

The whole time at this dinner, Huu kept giving me narrowed eyed glances, like I was a puzzle that couldn't be solved. Everytime he stared at me, I looked in a different direction.

"So, where are you kids from?" Huu asks, but his eyes were directed to me.

"I am from the Southern air temple." replies Aang.

"Katara and I are from the southern water tribe." Indicates Sokka.

After a pause,everyone looks at me, expecting me to answer. I twitch nervously underneath their expecting stares.

"Come to think of it, you haven't told us where you're from." Aang observes.

Huu strokes his chin and says,

"I do wonder where your from with that red hair and dark eyes of yours."

A cool silence envelops the air. All eyes turned to me. I twiddled my thumbs and could feel a cool sweat going down my neck. All I need to do now is whistle and act like nothing is happening.

"Heh heh. Well, I doubt you guys would believe me." I try with a nervous face.

"Try me." Huu jests beck.

"Well… I guess I could say I am fromanotherworld." I quickly say.

Aangs face is scrunched up, trying to decipher what I said. Huu though, knew exactly what I said, and seemed to have had his question answered.

"I had a feeling." Huu mumbles to himself.

"Wait wait wait, you are from another world? Than I'm the lord of the fire nation, nice to meet you." Sokka crosses his arms and rolls his eyes.

"I thought you were a waterbender?" asks Tho with a serious face.

"I was being sarcastic. This isn't the problem right now!" Sokka snaps while swinging his arms.

Katara wore a skeptical face the whole time while Aang was strong in thought. The swamp people around me had different reactions. many laughed while some asked,

"You're from another world?" with big faces and wide eyes.

"That's why you have different colored energy inside you." Aang guessed.

I raise my eyebrows. Was he talking about when he was looking for Momo and Appa? He never gave any indication that he saw my energy or whatever. I am getting tired of this worlds mumbo jumbo, again.

"What do you mean by different energy?" asks Sokka.

Aang pondered for a second.

"Well, when I put my hand on the tree root, and let my energy flow out, I could see everything it was connected too. Everyone showed up, Sokka, Katara, Huu, and Deanis. Everyone had seven different areas of white energy, except Deanis. Her energy color was blue."

Everyone quieted down for a second. Huu nodded his head at Aang and turned to all of us.

"No one must know of this. I mean no one."

"But what does it even mean?" questioned Katara.

All of us turned our heads to Huu, expecting him to answer us. But his attention was turned to Due and Tho.

"The catgators are really liking the fish you caught earlier today."

That fat old man is leaving us to find the answers like what every other old knowledgable man does in stories! Heck, Dumbledore never told Harry had a prophecy until the last dang minute.

"pshht, typical." I mutter to myself.

"None of this tells us about the visions." exclaims Katara.

"I told you we were hungry. I'm eating a giant bug!" Sokka shows everyone a giant bug and further proving his point, takes a bite out of it, spitting it out with a 'bleh" sound.

"But what about when the tree showed me Appa and Momo?" asks Aang.

Sokka makes a pfft sound and answers,

"That's avatar stuff, that doesn't count." He turns to Huu and asks,

"Still, I can't figure out how you made that tornado suck us down."

"I can't do anything like that. I just bend the water in plants." Huu answers, showing a vine being bended around his feet.

"Well, no accounting for weather. Still, there's absolutely nothing mysterious about the swamp. "

Sokka exclaims stubbornly.

"Because we all didn't see any visions or anything." I bite out to him sarcastically.

"We were hungry!" Sokka growls back.

"I wasn't!"

"You just drowned, you were delirious!"

As I was getting ready to pounce at Sokka with my fingernails, Aang does his quick get up from sitting and slides in between us.

"Okay, since Deanis is joining us on finding my earth bending teacher, you two need to get along."

Sokka and I look at each other with big eyes, while Katara beams at me.

"I am traveling with you guys?" I croak out.

"Unless you want to be left with the swamp benders."

I jump up at Aang and laugh out,

"I will choose anything over the swamp benders, besides psychotic killing people."

Sokka groans out,

"Why?"

I elbow him in the ribs and say,

"Deal with it."

"We also have to find out more about what is up with your energy and how to get you home." Katara belts out.

I haven't thought about home in the last day or so being here in this whole other world, but now that I think of about it, I am not all that sad. I am going to miss Lavea of course, she brings a pang to my heart, but there really isn't anything left of me at home. My parents are always gone and I was always a loner at school. I smile wide to the three of them, feeling like I might actually belong somewhere.

"Well what are we waiting for! Lets ride this so called flying bison!"

**=*~`""`~*=**

**So I got the Swamp Episode done! Yippee! Please review if you like this story or not. If you think I should keep going with this story, than hey, just click the review button. I have been following the transcript to this episode pretty closely. Next episode to follow is, Avatar Day! I plan on trying to stray from the transcript as best as I can.**

**-Kydanson**


	2. Chapter 2: Avatar Day

**Second chapter? NO way! Oh yes, I'm back with another chapter! (Ignore the huge amount of weeks it took me to write this) OKay, I actually enjoyed writing this one, mainly because I love Deanis! Hope you readers enjoy and leave loads of reviews to further help me in my writing career.**

**-Kydanson**

**I don't own Avatar, only Deanis.**

**Words: 7,613**

**Chapter 2: Avatar Day**

**=*~`""`~*=**

As you can guess, I love to sleep. So waking up to Sokka angrily shrieking,

"What are you doing in my mouth?"

Was not the highlight of my morning.

I opened my heavy eyes with a groan.

"All I need is Lavea shouting and I would be right at home." I sleepily mumble, with my arms stretching above my head.

"Momo, you need to be a little more sensitive to my boundaries." Sokka grounds out from his sleeping area.

"Shut up!" I hiss out from my spot on top of Appa.

I hear Momo chitter back to Sokka. Katara and Aang were making the first sounds of waking up from their sleeping points.

"Looks like I'm not getting any more sleep." I grumble out.

As the ground begins to shake, I raise my head to see what all the commotion was about. Rhinos suddenly burst out of the thicket of the spruce trees. I jerk up, fully awake, and shout,

"What is going on?"

Once I looked at all the Rhinos, I noticed that there were people riding them. The people all wore a dark maroon color, but had a very different variety of faces. As I observed their faces, they surrounded Appa.

"Give up! You're completely surrounded!" shouts one with a bald head and pony tail.

One of the other men on the rhinos lit up two arrows and shot them towards Sokka as he was inching away like a caterpillar in his sleeping bag.

"So this is firebending." I say in awe.

Luckily Sokka inched out from his sleeping bag in time from another arrow whizzing to where his head was at.

"Come on! Come on! Come on!" yelled Sokka as he sprinted towards Appa and I.

Watching the rhinos and firebenders, I felt so weak. They had this air about them that screamed 'confidence.' My head jerked quickly as I watched all of them and absorbed their demeanor and stances. I didn't even notice when Aang landed besides me.

Katara ran to Appa from the tree trunk she was sleeping on. Right after she left the tree trunk, the rhino man with a weapon that could spin and wrap around things spinned it into the tree trunk. Katara was running back towards the tree trunk while yelling,

"My scrolls!"

I looked around the tree trunk and saw all of the stuff that we have.

Besides me Aang observed shockingly,

"My staff!"

Aang jumps off Appa with grace that I didn't know a human being could possess and races to the tree trunk. Sokka climbs on top of Appa and says,

"These are fire benders."

I turn to him and yell gleefully,

"This is exciting!"

Sokka scoffs at me and turns back to where Aang and Katara were racing. Katara was fighting the man who had his swinging blade stuck in the stump and she bended ice around it. She manages to grab her waterbending scrolls and sprints back to Appa, while the man manages to get his blade unstuck from the ice.

"Good job!"

I hold my hand up to her for a high five, but she was staring at her water bending scrolls like they were her babies. So I give myself a high five and turn back to Aang as he invades a ignited grenade with his staff in his hand. Aang uses his airbending to propel himself onto Appas head.

"Yip yip!" cries Aang to Appa.

Appa lifts off the ground with a growl and starts flying away. I stare back at the rhino riding guys and notice at the last minute a man using an aggressive punching motion to send a fireball our way. The three of us sitting on the saddle duck our heads while the fire ball zooms past us, narrowly just missing our heads. Sokka looks back at the ground and screams out,

"Wait, my boomerang!" HIs arm was stretched out over the saddle almost like he could reach the boomerang as we raise into the clouds where none of our attackers could see us.

Katara grabs Sokka's arm preventing him from falling off of Appa,

"There is no time!" She directs to him.

Sokka's face turns into an annoyed face and growls out to Katara,

"Oh I see, there's time to grab your scrolls," He then turns to Aang, "and grab your staff." He crosses his arms in a big huff and lastly says,

"but no time for my boomerang?"

Katara didn't have much sympathy for Sokka because she answers cheerfully,

"That's correct."

Sokka's head lowers and just mumbles in defeat,

"Oh."

I cough to grab their attention, but Katara must have thought something else because she yelled at me,

"Oh I guess you forgot something too?"

I shrunk back from her unexpected reaction and held my hands up,

"No, I don't have anything to forget. I was only going to ask if those were firebenders."

Her face contorted to remorse from what she said.

"Oh, I am sorry Deanis, I didn't mean…" I held my hand up to her face to make her stop talking and just nodded my head in forgiveness.

She bites her lip and says,

"Those were firebenders...those are the type of people Aang, Sokka, and I are trying to stop from destroying any more than what they have."

I nod my head and ask,

"What did they do to bring so much hate?"

Her face turns to sadness and answers,

"Long ago, they attacked the other nations. They decimated the airbenders…" She looks over to Aang while he steers Appa, "There is only one airbender left."

My eyes widen. What Aang has went through, learning that he is the last of his kind. Thinking about all the times I was mad at my parents for abandoning me, I never was alone. I still had Lavea.

"When Sokka and I was younger, a fire nation boat raided our home, the southern water tribe. They were looking for the last waterbender there, and that was me."

Katara pauses and takes a deep breath. Sokka places a hand on her shoulder. She shudders and goes on,

"But, they never found out I was the last water bender in my tribe. My mom protected me… She… she said she was the last water bender. She was killed by the fire nation."

I could tell that she was trying to hold back tears. Her eyes glistened with her teeth biting her lip. Sokka kept his hand tightened on her shoulder and said with confidence,

"We will bring peace to this world and stop the fire nation from doing any more harm."

She nodded her head and looked back at me and gave me a week smile.

"I will help the best I can Katara, for you and your brother." I respond to her with a wide smile.

Katara and Sokka sigh and smile together. I really didn't know how to respond to the actions from the fire nation, I only know that they are the bullies in this world.

With Katara and Sokka emotionally and physically tired, they both lay down to sleep. I look to where Aang is, and swear to myself,

"I will help you."

**=*~`""`~*=**

A little later on, we landed Appa into a small village surrounded by green fields and more pine trees. At the moment, Sokka was laying on the ground being all doom and gloom about losing his boomerang. I was starting to feel a tick in my forehead, ready to throw this watermelon size rock at Sokka's complaining head. Katara was a little off buying some supplies, and I think some clothes for me, from a small shack of a shop.

"Sorry for your boomerang." Aang sympathizes.

"I feel like I lost my identity." Sokka glooms on. He jumps up quickly and lifts Aangs hat that hides his arrow and rants,

"Imagine if you lost your arrow or if Katara lost her…" He looks over at Katara and makes a gesture around his head that resembles Kataras hairstyle,

"hair loopies." He then looks over at me and says,

"Or if Deanis loses her red-"

"Oh we get it already, you're sad about losing your boomerang. Well let me tell you, I lost my world but I'm not complaining about it." I shut him up with a my growl of a rant. I even managed to make him look regrettable. He then lifts his foot and turns around, sauntering over to where Katara is at. She hugs him, giving him comfort for losing his stupid boomerang. I growl out and throw my hands in the air.

"Here's your produce, ponytail guy." The merchant slides our food and my clothes in a huge basket to Sokka. Sokka slouches and says weakly with the produce in his hand,

"I used to be boomerang guy."

I was about to throw my boot at him, hopefully square in the face, when Aang grabbed my wrist and said,

"He can be inconsiderate sometimes, but he is a good hearted person."

I bring my shoe down and nod.

"Have a nice Avatar day!" The merchant cheerfully says to us while walking down the road.

Aang turns his attention away from me and asks,

"Avatar day?"

The merchant was ahead of us and turned around,

"You guys are going to the festival, right?"

We all look around at each other (Now I can fully comprehend the secret language of eyes with them) seeing what the possible outcome to do is. The three of us all smile, while Sokka pathetically is crying.

**=*~`""`~*=**

Walking into Chin Village, you would definitely know there was a festival. This town went all out in festivities. The main street was full of people, and the closer you got to the center of the village the more packed it was. There were green lanterns hanging across the streets above all the citizens heads. Many stands were along the roads too, selling all sorts of weird things. One of the weird things that caught my eyes was...what I believed to be called, "Snake Squid on a stick." The noise in the streets rose higher and higher the closer we got to the square of the village. I had to squeeze closer and closer to Katara and Sokka that I could literally feel my face smush a little more.

"Happy Avatar Day," cried a little kid from a two story window above us.

Aang smiled brightly (not affected by the close proximities) and waved at the kid in the window.

I groan out from being pushed roughly into Katara from a pedestrian. She rubs her side I bumped into and I ask,

"How does this not bug him?" She shrugs out, or tries too but only seems to be pushed closer to me.

We finally made it to the main square, where all the people seemed to cluster at. At least we weren't so squished anymore.

"There's a holiday for the avatar, who knew?" Aang pondered out loud.

I really wished there wasn't any; I hated crowds more than my newly found hate for water.

A huge rumbling sound comes from behind us. All heads turn around to see a huge float of a woman roll by in these forest green samurai outfits. The crowd separate like the red sea for the float.

Katara pointed at the float and observed,

"Look! They made a giant Kyoshi float!"

I wonder what a "Kyoshi" is. But figuring that I have more important things to question, I will just let this one float in the wind.

"And here comes Avatar Roku!"

Another huge float goes by of a man with a long beard. HIs robes were a dark red with gold trimmings.

"There is more than one avatar?" I ask loudly to Katara.

She nods and yells back,

"I will give you the details later!"

I nod back at her, having even more unanswered questions.

"Having a huge festival in your honor is great, but frankly, it's just nice to be appreciated." Aang yells to us.

"And it's nice to appreciate their deep-fried festival food!" Sokka says as he takes a huge bite out of a Snake Squid on a stick.

"Yuck." I quietly say with my tongue sticking out.

We hear the same rumbling again, another float rumbled into the square to join the other two. This one looked a little bit familiar.

"Aang, look!" Shout Sokka while he points his empty Snake Squid stick towards the float.

"That's the biggest me I have ever seen!" Shouts Aang while he stares excitedly at his float. It amazes me how none of the villagers recognized Aang, even if Aang hides his tattoos. They obviously know what he looks like, because the float looks just like him.

Since I was taller than Aang and Katara, and the same height as Sokka, I could see a flame moving towards the floats.

"Now a torch, that's a nice prop. It's bright, dangerous…" Sokka sniffs and continues "Smells manly. But I'm not sure I could carry it off."

"I would agree with you, you're not manly at all."

"Hey!" Sokka shrieks back at me.

I ignore him turning my attention back to where the huge floats are at. I notice the guy with the flame still running towards the Kioshi float.

"Hey, what's that guy doing?" Katara blurts out in surprise while pointing at the runner.

"Hee Yaw!" yells the running man as he throws the flame into Avatar Kioshi. This was not what I was expecting. The whole dang float goes up in huge burning flames, like these people poured gasoline all over it beforehand.

Over the sounds of the flame, the people around us were all chanting,

"Down with the avatar!"

I gulp and look at Aang. HIs face was in utter shock. A big ol' fly could zoom into his mouth and he still wouldn't close it in how much shock he was in.

I could hear another searing sound and look at Avatar Roku being consumed by flames.

My eyes widen even more and look at my friends and notice that food fell out of Sokka's open mouth. In another situation, I would have cracked up laughing, but since this whole festivity is against the people who are supposed to bring peace, I don't think I will.

Last but not least, Aangs float goes up in flames. I'm a pretty lazy person in general, so my line of thought was along the lines of, why burn all this work? I mean, if you make a float that's maybe taller than ten feet, and all it is for burning? I just don't understand these peoples line of thinking.

While I'm standing there, thinking my lazy thoughts, Katara runs up to Aangs float and water bends the flames out. My eyes widen even more (which I do not know how it is possible) and I whisper out, "Katara! Nooooo."

"That party pooper is trying to ruin Avatar day!" yelled a random villiger. Probably at Katara.

I could hear the air around me shift. I look over and see Aang isn't by me anymore.

"Aaaaaannnng." I groan out.

"That party pooper is my friend!" yells Aang as he throws his hat to reveal his tattoo. Did I forget to mention he airbended himself on top of his floats shoulder?

"Really? With the theatrics?" I ask out in annoyance.

"There goes a nice and peaceful time in a village." I groan out.

"It's the avatar himself!" yelled an exceptional observant person.

"It's gonna kill us with its awesome avatar powers!" Shrieked another villager.

"Pfftttt, 'its." I laugh out. Sokka gives me a bitter look. I look back at him with a face,  
"that was funny."

Aangs eyes widen and he defends,

"No i'm not, I…"

As he says this he raises his hands. All the villagers shriek in fear and move backwards, squishing Sokka and I up against other people.

"I am really thinking of joining those two up there." I mumble out while being squeezed further against other people. I think Sokka is nodding his head or was struggling against the people.

The highly observant person speaks again,

"I suggest you leave!" Over the heads of the villagers, I could see that the man was gesturing Aang and Katara away like they were street dogs begging for food.

"You're not welcome here avatar!" Shouts what I'm thinking to be the head of authority here.

Katara turns to the observant (This whole time i'm being sarcastic) authority figure and opens her big mouth,

"Why not? Aang helps people!"

"These people are stupid and afraid you can't reason with them." I say out loud while Sokka nods his head in agreement. This whole time Aang and Katara have been doing their thing with theatrics, Sokka and I have been inching further and further towards them.

"It's true I'm on your side!" yells Aang while he lands beside Katara from the huge float.

"I find that hard to swallow, considering what you did to us in your past life! It was avatar kyoshi; she murdered our glorious leader, Chin the great!"

"You think I murdered someone?" Aang asks with shock.

"LIke that little hippy kid could murder anyone." I say out loud.

"Again with the word 'hippy." Sokka ponders.

As we were talking, more and more villagers were telling about how great this "Chin" was.

"Aang would never do something like that. No avatar would. And it's not fair for you to question his honor!" shouts Katara to the villagers.

"More with the babying. Geez." I mumble. I could hear Sokka let out a little snicker beside me. We were getting closer and closer to Aang and Katara, and the closer we were, the more I could see the situation. even though I'm quite tall, I still couldn't see that much from where I was standing earlier.

One of the villagers raises his arm and yells,

"Let's tell her what we all think of the "Avatars" honor!"

He turns around and shakes his butt at Aang and Katara and blows a raspberry. The villagers around him cheer along with him.

"Real mature. Is this high school or what?" I ground out in disbelief.

"Give me a chance to clear my name!" Yells Aang.

"The only way for you to clear your name is to stand trial." The mayor replies.

Aang yells confidently back,

"I will gladly stand trial!"

"You'll have to abide by our rules. That includes paying bail." The mayor says as he crosses his arms.

Aang puts his hands on his hips and jests back,

"No problem."

**=*~`""`~*=**

Aang being what you would call, "acts before you think." is now being locked behind bars. He had sheepish face and I say,

"Sometimes, you might need to ask questions before you act."

Aang gives me a look that I should shut up. I shrug and basically let him know I am not the one behind bars.

Sokka crosses his arms and gives Aang an annoyed look.

"How was I supposed to know they wouldn't take Water Tribe money?"

"Pffftttt." I breath out and roll my eyes. Aang glares at me.

"So some people don't like you, big deal! theres a whole Fire Nation who hate you. Now lets bust you out of here." Sokka says.

"I still don't get why you have the need to defend yourself to this village, while we could have just walked out with no problem. But nooo, Aang and Katara have hero complex." For a few seconds I stare at the ceiling with my face slowly revealing I am having an epiphany.

"By god, I would make a perfect Slytherin."

Everyone stares at me and slowly look away, not even questioning me anymore.

Aang looks back at Sokka and says,

"I can't"

Sokka says energetically,

"Sure you can! A little…" He makes air bending motions while Katara shakes her head at her older brother. "Swish-swish-swish!"

Sokka yells while making air bending motions with every swish sound. "Airbending slice!"

He yells again while running around the room making more air bending motions. He returns to Kataras side and makes a motion to the door "and were on our way!"

"Sometimes I question your age." I mention to Sokka.

"I know, I seem older than what I really am."

"I don't think that's what she means." Katara snaps out with annoyance.

Katara and I glare at Sokka and he looks away sheepishly.

"I think what master swish here is trying to say is that you're supposed to be out saving the world. You can't do that locked up in here." Katara says.

"I can't do that with people thinking I'm a murderer either. I need you guys to help prove my innocence."

Sokka asks with a scoff,

"And how are we gonna do that? The crime happened three hundred years ago."

"That's okay, Sokka. For some reason, I thought you were an expert detective."

That sly dog.

Sokka puts a hand to his chin and says,

"Well I guess I could be classified as such."

I shake my head.

"Yeah! Back home, he was famous for solving the mystery of the missing seal jerky!" Katara adds catching on to where Aang is going.

All three look at me to add something,

"Um, You are super smart?" I add with a shrug.

"Everyone wanted to blame it on the polar leopard, but I figured it was old man Jerko wearing polar leopard boots." I groan out realizing that Sokka is gonna do more bragging. Katara holds a hand to her forehead in annoyance.

"See, a real eight hundred-pound polar leopard would have left much deeper tracks." Behind Sokka's back, Aang is making fun of him. Katara and I laugh at him.

"Okay, I guess I'm pretty good." Sokka ends.

Aang asks with a knowing expression,

"So you'll help me with my case?"

Sokka puts his finger to his chin, pretending to ponder the question. I blow out in annoyance at Sokka.

Sokka suddenly says with his arms swinging,

"Fine! But I'm gonna need new props!"

"Maybe a brain…" I mumble out, with Aang the only one to hear me. He laughed out, but regained his composure when Sokka gave him a questioning look.

"Well I think I had to much excitement for the day, so I will stay here with Aang." I say while sitting down on the floor in fake exhaustion.

"Maybe that's for the best. You probably wouldn't be much help."

Sokka exclaims with ignorance. I stare daggers at the back of his head.

"Well I'm off! Time for Detective Sokka to solve the case!" Sokka yells out while gliding out the jail door. Katara follows his lead with a sigh and cries out,

"We will get you out Aang!"

They left Aang and I to silence. Aang and I look at each other and I ask,

"You, are a genius, you swindled him like nobody's business." I say to him.

Aang smiles a wide smile.

**=*~`""`~*=**

I left a little while later. Aang had two other inmates with him, and they seemed to be talking about how Aang could get Katara. I figured since I am probably the worst person to give advice about relationships, I would leave silently. The village was a lot more quiet. There was still vendors here and there, but the streets aren't as crowded as they once were. I sighed in relief.

The village itself was very oriental like, with dark green roofs and cream colored walls. The lanterns above me shook slowly with the small breeze. This would be the first village I have been in since I have joined this world. And, my first impression is, I don't like it. Reason why, is because the people here suck. The good thing was though, they don't know I'm the Avatars friend. The good thing about having an demeanor like mine, is I don't have a heros complex.

I saw a person lighting flames in the lanterns hanging above the road. I remembered the fire benders from earlier. Looking around, I found an empty street leading from the main square. I scamper in there in a fueling excitement. Of course I didn't notice that this street lied behind a big ol' house, that most likely is where the mayor lived.

Once I made sure no one was around me, I took the fire benders stance, that is commonly referred from in my world, "Northern Shaolin."

I breathed in and out. feeling this strange heat build up in my stomach. I do a punch to try and make the heat flow from my stomach to my arm, but nothing happened. I try again but with no avail. I groan out and kick a can.

"Something doesn't feel right!" I growl out.

I punch the air in frustration, feeling the heating sensation in my stomach move out of my body like a combustion bomb. I could feel heat around me.

I open my eyes to see that the house in front of me was bursting in flames.

"Heck yeah!" I scream and jumped into the air in joy. I try doing the same punch again, but nothing happened.

"Y..You! Firebender! You burned my house!"

I turn around on one foot and see the mayor standing in front of me with a horrified face.

"What house." I try.

"The house that's burning!" Squealed the mayor with flailing arms.

"I don't see a house burning." I try and interject.

"You, you fiend! You burn my house and now you say there isn't a burning house!"

"Yup." I reply back with nonchalance.

Inside, I was actually freaking out. My heart was beating rapidly with the revelation that I could bend fire. And, that I might be arrested.

"Mayor! Where's the firebender!" Yelled an approaching villager.

I Could see more and more people coming and I was sweating more and more with fear and the heat from the burning house.

"She's right there! I saw her bend fire into my house!"

"No you didn't" I try and steer things away from me.

"You just wanna see that I bent fire."

"But you did bend fire!" Yelled the Mayor in a voice that was possessed by ten year old girl.

"Noo I didn't.I think old age is deceiving you. Have your eyes checked." I jest back.

The mayors face turned red and he screamed out,

"Seize her!"

Two big villagers came up to me. Their big beefy hands grabbed my skinny arms and started to drag me to the mayor.

"Oh crap." I mumble out.

I didn't even try to use my special defense skills on these people, there was to many around to even try and fight.

"Send her behind bars!" Screams the mayor with his hand pointed accusingly at me.

I could feel my feet being dragged behind me as they moved me back to where Aang was at.

"This sucks…" I groan out.

**=*~`""`~*=**

"What did you do!" Aang asks while I was thrown in the cell with all the prisoners.

"Just ummm… Itriedfirebending… and well...Iburnedthemayorshousedown." I rushed.

"_What_?" Aang asked with an annoyed face.

I breathed out and slowly said,

"Apparently I'm a firebender…"

Aang looked at me for awhile. Trying to see if I was joking with him or being sarcastic. He scrunched his eyes tightly and sighed.

"Explain to me."

"Well...I was copying the stances of the guys who attacked us this morning, and I felt a weird heat in my stomach. I already knew what the stances were, so I tried pulling the heat out. I um, got angry and punched out and well, fire came out of my fist."

I rubbed the back of my neck nervously.

"I know you are…" Aangs looks at the other prisoners and leans towards me and whispers,

"You are from another world. I believe you and I saw your chi. So, I believe you."

I smiled widely until Aang mentioned,

"I don't get how you managed to burn the mayors house down."

"Guess poor luck or I'm a super strong fire bender." I smiled.

"How are you going to get out of jail now?" Aang asks with agony.

"Hey, I don't care if I need to prove I'm innocent, I can just break out." I flex my skinny arms at Aang and wriggle my eyebrows.

"You're as bad as Sokka. But you will **have **to break out." Aang says.

The other prisoners were quiet this whole time. One pansy looking one finally asked,

"Is this the girl Aang?"

"No, no. She's just a friend." Aang answers quickly.

"Ohh talking about Katara?" I sing song to Aang.

His face goes red and he nods sadly.

"So she is free?" asks a rough looking prisoner.

Before Aang could answer I quickly said,

"NO!"

The prisoners looked sad and the sensitive one asked,

"Is he a good guy?"

I look between Aang and the prisoners. I sighed and put my lying skills to use.

"He is a rich man who owns...golden shoes."

Okay, I haven't used them in awhile, give me some slack.

The two prisoners eyebrows raise high and they look at each other.

"Is he a firebender like you?" The rough prisoner asks.

"Sure sure."I answer with a wave of the hand.

"Stop asking questions. My man doesn't like to be known." I end the conversation about my imaginary man. Even in my world I never dated. I was a highly sheltered kid in my mansion. Even though I went to school, I didn't have time for socializing when I had to learn special defense.

Aang looks at me and moves closer. I raise my eyebrows until I realize he wanted to talk privately with me.

"So, you're a firebender now…"

I nod my head and reply to him,

"I really don't know what to think, but I'm actually excited I can actually bend. In my world, humans don't have special powers or anything…"

He nods.

"I'm not mad at you… It's just, hard. Firebenders are people who hate me, yet you come along and you're quite the opposite of a firebender. You're free spirited. And… this doesn't change what I think of you. You're my friend."

I smile at him and pat his shoulder. His truthfulness gave me reassurance that I'm fine with him. Our friendship isn't over.

"So...Is it okay if I want to learn how to firebend?"

Aang smiled and replied,

"If you can find a firebender, Im fine. We actually could probably find a firebending scroll just like Katara's waterbending scroll."

"Thanks Aang. You're a good friend to not judge me." I mumble to him.

We go quiet.

I finally notice that the prison was quite empty. There wasn't any benches, just hay and thats it. This town really sucked.

"So, what did the mayors face look like when he saw you burning his house?"

Aang asks with a curious expression.

I burst out laughing and answer in giggles,

"Priceless! He was so shocked! And he shrieked like a little girl!"

Aang smiles a toothy smile and turns to the laughing prisoners and asks,

"Can you imagine that?"

The sensitive looking prisoner shook his head while the rough one nodded. I felt a lot more lighter inside. Aang made me feel much better about me being a firebender. Although, I still do not know how Sokka and Katara are going to prove Aang innocent… or their reaction to me being a firebender. They might not be as forgiving as Aang from their past experience with firebenders.

I bite my lip and scrunched my eyebrows together in worry.

**=*~`""`~*=**

I was bored.

Bored. Bored. Bored! I'm in the avatar world, yet; I'm stuck in jail. You are probably asking, "How come she doesn't fire-bend?"

Well, because I can't do it anymore! I keep trying, but it's not working. Multiple times I have tried punching the air and bringing fire out, but with no avail. Aang has questioned me on what I was doing and I just growled at him to shut him up.

"Aang, I think she may be trying to fire bend." The sensitive prisoner observes.

"...yeah." Aang answers.

I just slump down and groan out,

"Why is it not working?"

Aang pats my back and tries and help,

"Maybe you're not mad enough?"

I jerk my head up and snap at him,

"I'm not mad enough? Well I feel pretty damn mad right now!"

Aang backs away from me and holds his hands up.

Suddenly, the door to the prison bangs open and Sokka and Katara run in with the mayor in tow.

"Honorable mayor, we've prepared a solid defense for the avatar. We did an investigation and found some very strong evidence." Katara says confidently.

"Heh heh, honorable?" I giggle out.

The mayor shoots me a look and turns back to Sokka and Katara.

"Evidence! Hmph. That's not how our court system works!" The mayor grounds out dismissively.

Aang looked aghast and asked,

"Than how can I prove my innocence?"

The mayor buffed his chest out and quickly says,

"Simple. I say what happens" He points to himself than points to Aang "Then you say what happened, and then I decide who's right." Everyone gasps besides me. I just gave a sarcastic laugh. The mayor continued,

"That's why we call it justice. Because it's 'just-is."

"Ohh, that's clever." I state sarcastically.

"Ohh I know-..." The mayor stopped talking when he realized I spoke sarcastically. He glared at me with pure hate.

He stomps out of the room with Katara and Sokka in tow.

"So now what do we wait for?" I ask Aang.

He shrugs and just says,

"I guess we just wait."

**=*~`""`~*=**

Later that night, the mayor and his guards grab Aang and lead him away. I tried to show him a questionable look, but there wasn't any time to. Katara walked in after they left and squatted by the bars to my level and reassures me,

"We are taking Aang to trial. Sokka and I will think of way to get Aang innocent and leave this place."

She leaves the room in a hurry, leaving me alone with the other two prisoners. I look over to them, one looked like he was about to cry and the other had a face of anger.

"I hope Aang will be okay." Sniffs the almost crying prisoner.

"It's okay buddy." The angry prisoner consoles as he pats his friends back. I roll my eyes at them and look around the prison. The bars holding us in were above our heads while rock enclosed around us. The whole room was a rectangular shape with sun above our heads, enhancing the dust laying on top of everything in here. Where the prison door was, there was a circular window with wooden bars criss-crossing beside it.

"Wooden…" I mumble out loud, resulting in the other prisoners to raise their heads to me with questionable looks.

I tap my finger to my lip and mumble more,

"Fire burns wood...wood is to my freedom. I can bend fire!" I stand up at my excitement to solving the puzzle.

"Now I just need to know how to firebend." I look over at the prisoners with a hopeful look, but only received blank faces.

"Okay, guess it's just you and me now." I say to my hands.

I puff up my chest and square my shoulders to the new obstacle in front of me. I walk straight up to the wooden window and stare at it.

"The window isn't going to set itself on fire." Jaunted one of the prisoners.

I shut them up with a quick menacing glare and return back to my job. I retraced my steps in my mind to remember how I exactly did the firebending. I copied the moves of those rhino riders and acted all aggressive. Than I got mad and just started punching randomly. OKay...the aggressive moves, fire…, mad.

"Oh so typical." I sigh out managing to comprehend that firebending came easier if I'm frustrated or mad.

Taking a deep breath and taking a wide firebending stance, I move my arms slowly to their places. I couldn't allow myself to be thinking about other things. I couldn't rely on the others to come and save me when I know I can use my newly found powers.I close my eyes and breath out, trying to find the heat in my stomach, pulling and prodding it through my hands. I thought of all the moments in life where I was let down or simply felt mad about. In one quick motion I smiled while jumping in the air. I punched out quickly, letting the heat within me flow out through my hands. This time I saw what I created, I saw the fire leave my hands to the wooden window. I land before my deed and smile ear-to-ear and laugh giddily.

"She did it!"

"She wasn't lying."

"...She looked like a natural for just starting today." The prisoners were in aghast and surprise from my quick fire bending strategy.

I look back at all the prisoners with a raised eyebrow and hands on my hips. They looked at me in surprise and a new feeling of respect.

"Okay everyone! Time to be free!" I emphasize the word "free" by spreading my arms wide and swinging them towards the now open hole in the wall. The flames were quick to go out, which surprised me but in this world, everything is different. They all looked at each other, trying to see if this was true. Then they looked at me one by one and gave me thankful looks, leaving through the hole in a line. As the last prisoner left the vicinity, I stare around the bare room. I stick my tongue out at it and quickly leave through the hole.

I sprint through the halls in the jailhouse (getting lost more times than I would like to admit) I finally came out into the sunlight and go down on my knees in theatrics and yell,

"Free at last!" Sadly no one saw my beautiful acting skills. I stood back up dusting my knees and look around the empty street. Weirdly, I could hear screaming deeper in the small town and I could smell houses burning.

"That's not good." I say to myself.

I contemplate going to the sounds of the chaos...but then I contemplated on hiding in a cubby somewhere.

"Decisions, decisions." I sing out.

I sigh out realizing that most likely Aang and everyone was probably in the heart of the chaos. I shake my head at my own stupidness and start running to the sounds of the screaming people.

**=*~`""`~*=**

Anyone remember those rhino riding guys? Well, they came back. I turned around the last corner to come face to face with a tall guy in face paint, as I remember him using a bow and arrow.

"Well, don't mind me...just an innocent bystander." I slowly back up to only bump into something that wasn't behind me before. I turn my head in a painfully slow movement to become face to face with his rhino. I turn back to the guy to find an arrow locked in on my face.

"Move and I shoot." The man simply said. I glare at him and say,

"So I can't breath?"

He cocks an eyebrow and replies back,

"Yes...You will die if you don't"

But you will shoot if I move, and I will die from that arrow." I snap back to him. The man glared at me, then lowered his arrow.

"Wrong move kemosabe!" I yell to him as I slam my elbow into his throat. He groans out and falls to the ground clutching his throat. I grab his bow and arrow and throw it on top of a roof on one of the closer houses. I look behind me at the rhino to see that it was eating out of a cart full of cabbages. The guy I just elbowed in the throat was slowly getting back up with a murderous look on his face. I kick at his face sending him back down.

"For some reason I thought he would be stronger than this…" I ponder out loud. As I was pondering, a fireball shot straight into one of the house in front of me.

I scamper away from the fireball and jump on the rhino and climbed onto the roof. (Remember, I have taken special classes my whole entire life, so this little maneuver was easy for me.)

ON the roof I could see what was going on in the village around me.

"Oh dang…" I breath out as I took in all the damages.

There was fire in multiple houses, and screaming civilians everywhere. I narrow my eyes at the cowering mayor. He was hiding a little ways behind Aang as Aang kicked ass to the leader of the riding rhino group. I smile as Aang sends the man above the tall fence outlining the village. The man would not be seen for awhile as he soared like team rocket does when they are defeated in every episode.

The villagers cheered as the riding rhinos left the village with their tails between their legs. Aang saved the day for a village that was out to get him. That nice little kid helped that mayor of a bastard.

The mayor went up to Aang and gave him a pat on the back and a couple words I would not even be able to dream to hear from where I was standing. I sighed as I realized Aang was forgiven, but I would still need to stay hidden (considering I destroyed the mayors house and let out some criminals into the streets.) I jump down from the roof of the house and disappear into the shadows, waiting until Aang, Sokka, and Katara return to Appa in the woods.

**=*~`""`~*=**

Later that evening, we were all riding on Appa. The night sky was a dark electric blue that strangely could calm our nerves. I learned that the village will celebrate Avatar day by honoring Aang instead of burning him. I also learned I had a wanted poster posted everywhere in the small village, with the name of,"Wanted, The fire burner of houses."

Not the best name I wanted to be known as, but that really isn't the problem. Sokka and Katara fill in on how they solved the case (they really didn't, but I guess avatar Kyoshi controlled Aang and scared the pellets out of the villagers at Aangs trial.)

Once everything died down in our excitement, Sokka finely asked the question I have been dreading.

"How did you even get in prison, or even get out?"

I bite my lip and narrow my eyes in worry. I look at Aang and he nods his head in reassurance.

"Okay...Please don't be mad...but, I guess I have the ability to fire bend." I calmly say.

Sokka and Katara stare at me for a few seconds. They look at each other than at Aang, finally back to me.

"We trust you." Katara smiles to me.

"Just because you can firebend, doesn't mean you're evil." She finishes.

I beam at her, making her smile back as she grabs my hand and squeezes it. Sokka blew air out and said,

"It's not like you're a threat or anything." He smiles at me while I gently punch him in the shoulder.

"You guys...even though I have only known you for two weeks, you guys are the best." They smiled at me and leaned in.

"Group hug!" Sokka yells.

"Oh no...Please no." I whimper out, but either hear or ignored, am still hugged by all three of them. They let go and we look at each other quietly until Sokka,

"I still can't believe how you managed to burn the mayors whole house down!"

**=*~`""`~*=**

**Alright guys! Chapter two is done! Hope you liked it because it was more of a writing of Deanis instead of the adventures of Sokka and Katara solving the case. I really hoped you enjoyed this story because next chapter, Toph is coming with a bang! Yes! Review and loves and kisses to all you readers. Thanks for the readers who reviewed!**

**-Kydanson**


	3. Chapter 3: The Blind Bandit Part1

**This chapter is shorter than the other two by about 2,000 words. I didn't finish the whole episode of the Blind Bandit but left at a place that I feel is appropriate. If I had tried to get the whole entire episode into this one chapter, I believe I would have way over 7,000 words. Also, honestly, I'm going to have shorter chapters. **

**So enjoy this chapter, and enjoy the nice weather that we are having here today. :D**

**I don't own Avatar, only Deanis and her fantastic sneers.**

**Tophs now a boy.**

**Words: 6,141**

**Chapter 3: The Blind Bandit**

**=*~`""`~*=**

After traveling on Appa for a couple of days, you realize that even though you are on a huge physics defying flying animal, sleeping gets uncomfortable. Your head is on a flat hard saddle, Appa smells like a barn, and the biting temperature is uncomfortable. Also, listening to Sokka every day in close quarters tests my patience.

Although flying on an animal isn't extremely fun, the view is amazing.

The lands of what I learned to be the Earth Nation stretched out in many shades. The dark greens of the dense forests, Browns of rocky deserts, And purple mountains jutting out of the lands. They zigzag across the land, connecting the rocky settings with the feathery forests. In my world, I remembered flying in my families private jet. we flew through Washington state. It was basically a smaller land mass than the Earth Nation.

One night on Appa, it was twilight. The land below us was the rocky desert, creating a never ending sight of dark shadows from the pointy hill-size boulders. The night sky was something that could never be captured quite right in a photo, only by your memory. The stars twinkled above like tiny little beacons, helping wanderers find there way in the night light. They stretched across the sky in every direction, some clustered together where they become almost blinding. The sunsets horizon was orange. The small clouds turning pink from the reflection of the setting sun. I had to breathe in awe at the images the nature of this world brought to me. At that moment, I was glad to have fallen in the pool, I felt that this world was welcoming me into its beauty.

Today, we finally landed in a town that puts Chin village to shame. The town was enormous, with houses spread out far and wide. They pooled as far as the outskirts of the village where the farmlands were located. This town is small compared to even more cities, especially what Aang and the group keep telling me about Ba Sing Se.here is one thing that ties the town we are in, Gaoling, to Chin village. The buildings are exactly alike. They have the same color, materials, and the houses are spaced exactly the same.

Walking through the streets of Gaoling, I noticed a different variety of clothes that weren't in the small village of Chin. The more extravagant clothes put my new ones to shame. They were obviously the richer people of this town who owned those clothes. The clothes I had on now were Earth Nationed style with one difference, an Orange vest. My pants were baggy and came down to my calf's, to where they meet my dark green boots. My whole outfit clashed horribly with my hair, but I was fairly happy I didn't have to wear heavy clothes like Katara usually does.

The merchant who sold these clothes was quite sleazy at first when I asked for clothes that wouldn't be stared at. He grabbed the most revealing clothes and wanted me to try them on in front of him. I stared long and hard at the short bald man until his shoulders drooped and he went to the back room and grabbed more suitable clothing.

I often get strange looks from people, but they quickly look away after I glowered at them with my evil eye. I was regretting my decision of dying my hair red, and it wasn't dulling at all when it was supposed to over time.

At the moment, Sokka was shopping in a small store. Katara stood by him with Momo on her shoulder while Aang and I were sitting down with matching hats. His was hiding his arrow tattoo while mine was hiding my red hair the best it could. I look back over at Sokka and sigh when he raises a big duffle bag and pensively says,

"It's pricey...but I really do like it."

"Than you should get it. You deserve something nice." Katara says trying to hurry Sokka in his decisions.

"I do don't I." Sokka agrees with a bored expression. Than sighs and puts the bag back,

"But no, it's too expensive."

"Make up your mind!" I ground out at him with my arms moving with every word. Katara smiles at my outburst, getting used to my thin patience. She walks away from the booth with Aang following. Sokka follows while still staring at the bag.

While Sokka does his thing and still contemplating if he wants to buy the bag, I notice a guy running around from people to people showing them something as he goes. A picture flashes from the paper and I notice it must be a flyer to some event.

We walk a little ways from the store until Sokka suddenly stops and exclaims,

"I'm gonna get that bag!"

Sokka runs back towards the store while the rest of us wait on the street.

"We are getting nowhere with him around. How did you guys even travel?" I ask incredulously.

Katara stared at me for a few seconds, then back at Sokka.

"You know what, I don't know."

The man handing out papers from earlier suddenly veered to us and says,

"Psst, psst! Hey, you kids love earthbending? You like ... throwing rocks? Then check out Master Yu's Earthbending Academy." He hands over a flier to Aang with a huge smile.

"Sales people are all annoying in every world." I snidely remark. The man narrows his eyes at me, and quickly scampers off to other people. Katara kicks my foot and instructs me,

"You don't just say what you think!"

"I say what I want to say." I quickly tell her with my arms crossing.

"You can't though! You can't say anything about…" She looks around and whispers to me,

"About your home…"

"I perfectly know what I can and can't say Katara. I advise you to stop mothering me, I'm older than you by three years, I can mother myself. So stop being annoying please." She glares at me and shakes her head.

"Umm…" Both of us stop glaring at each other and look at a nervous Aang. His throat bobs up and down. He shows us the back of the flier,

"The back of the flier has a coupon, so the first Earthbending lesson is free…"

A smile breaks Kataras grimace and she says excitedly,

"Who knows? This master Yu could be the earthbending teacher you've been looking for!"

"Master Yu is gonna teach '_Yu_'." I snicker at my remark, while Katara and Aang give me a blank look and sigh. Sokka joins us with heavy breathing. He has his new bag shouldered, resulting me in annoying him,

"Ohh your purse is so cute." I gushed.

"It's not a purse!" Sokka shrieks.

"It looks like one."

"No it doesn't! It's a bag to hold my _manly _things. Things you wouldn't understand."

"Don't you mean, Things_ I _wouldn't understand?" I ask with a lazy smile.

Sokka fumes at me and walks away, towards Katara and Aang who already were on their way to the Academy.

**=*~`""`~*=**

The Academy was just like any other building in the world. Tan cement walls with a traditional dark green trim. Katara, Sokka, Momo and I were all standing on the sidelines of the Academy, watching all the earthbenders. Aang was struggling, that much was true. He was standing perplexed in a line of young pupils. One difference I noticed between Aang and the very young kids was Aang looked out of place, with his childish mannerisms. The other children looked like they had their parents expectations stuck up their butts.

The instructor, Yu, walked in front of all his Pupils. The row opposite of Aang had big boulders placed in front of them. He commands,

"Take your stances!" All the young students take their stances, while leaving Aang standing, looking aloof. Yu continues with his _lovely _teaching,

"Now, strike as if you were punching through your opponent's head!" He demonstrates the movement he means, and the pupils lift their rocks after seeing him. Aang's face contorts from confusion to startled. The student that stood across from Aang fires his rock at him. Aang couldn't even make a sound of surprise as he gets hit by the rock in the gut and smashes into a vase in the shape of a teapot by the impact of the blow. I wince at Aangs misfortune.

"This class is brutal." I remark with a nod of agreement from Katara.

Yu approached Aang and said in a unsympathetic voice,

"So, are you ready to commit to more lessons? If you pay for the whole year in advance, I'll bump you up to the next belt!"

Aang was buried beneath the debris he fell in, or pushed in. He stares at his instructor, while the sand shifts to cover what's left of his face showing.

**=*~`""`~*=**

"Ehh, he's not the one." Aang sadly says while walking out the Academy to meet with us. He shakes his head, sprinkling sand everywhere. He then beats his ear, making sand flow out of his other ear. As he is doing all this, one of the other students that was in the Academy was leaving. One was saying with much animation in his actions,

"I think the Boulder's going to win back the belt at Earth Rumble VI!"

The other retorts, "He's going to have to fight his way through the best earthbenders in the world to get a chance!"

We all stare at the teenage earthbenders backs as they leave, further more talking about the earthbending talk. Aang hurries after them and jumps in front of the earthbenders, blocking their path, and asks,

"Excuse me, but where is this earthbending tournament, exactly?"

I couldn't see the earthbenders faces, but from their stances, they looked annoyed with Aang. Walking closer to them as one plummy answers Aangs question sarcastically,

"It's on the island of Noneya ..."_Noneya"_ business!" They laugh (Immaturely I might say) and start to walk away. Before they left earshot they heard me say out loud,

"That was a really stupid joke… or insult… I don't even know what he thought was funny about it."

The one who made the so called "joke" turned around slowly and asks tightly,

"Who said that?"

Katara,Aang, and Sokka rolled their eyes and looked at me. The earthbender glared at me.

"Well, you already know I said it...so I guess, um… I said it." I shrugged my shoulders in the process. The guy looked up and down at me, and sneered. I narrowed my eyes at him and dared him to say what he oh-so-had to say. He walked up to me and gave me the evil eye, by looking up at me. I smiled and tried not to laugh at how he was trying to be intimidating. His face turns red and he clenches his teeth in anger. I look down at him with my arms crossed, and say,

"How old are you?"

"None of your business, Gigantor!" I raise my eyebrow at him and reply calmly,

"Gigantor? Hmm, first time being called that. So from that joke, and insult, I'm going to say you are 13 years old? Very immature age for boys, unless you are Sokka."

Sokka yelled "Hay." which I ignored and stared at the earth boy with mischief in my eye. He sputtered out and angry yelled to me,

"I'm sixteen! You can't be older than...twelve, because...because of how flat chested you are!"

All is silent among us. The boy realized what he said to me and his eyes widen in fear from how scary my face looks. Slowly I crack my neck, and bend move my face closer to the earth boy and say in a sotto voice,

"I have a bet for you. Let us fight one on one."

He smiled and laughed right in my face and turned to his friend, and the newly forming crowd,

"This girl thinks she can beat me! A girl beating a strong earthbender! Hah" I stand there without further emotion or movement and add,

"I a non-bender, can beat you even when you are bending." the crowd oohed at that and the boy glared at me.

"Are you sure you want to hurt yourself? I can't fight you; you might be hurt too bad."

"I think someone is too afraid to be beat up by a girl." I retort.

as this is happening, Aang, Katara, and Sokka all back up and act like they don't know me.

"Oh I can beat you." He seethes.

"Okay, if you beat me, I do whatever you say-"

"Deanis! Are you an Idiot?" Katara whispers.

I ignore and keep going,

"If I beat you, you have to tell Aang here where the EarthBending Tournament is."

The guy snorts and says to me,

"Prepare to be my slave _girl_."

I smile at him and ask sweetly to someone in the crowd,

"Can one of start this fight?"

The persons eyes widen and he stutters out,

"Okay...Start?"

I stand there, staring at the boy and ask,

"Before I embarrassingly beat you up, can I ask your name?"

His eyes narrow and he flips sending a rock zips quickly my way. I dodge slowly and stare at him expectantly.

"My name is Moh, prepared to be dominated."

I smile at him and reply,

"Deanis."

I leap into fighting mode, sprinting to the boy, dodging flying boulders. Each boulder he bended toward me, I got closer. In my world, I wasn't this fast, but maybe it's the adrenaline thats pumping through my veins right now that makes me speedier. I was a very angry girl at the moment, no one calls me Gigantor and flat chested on the same day, no one.

He punches a boulder at me, resulting in me trying something new. Instead of dodging, I jump onto the boulder, and use the force of it, and jump towards Moh. The speed added from the impact of the boulder, had me moving Mach speed (not really). I could feel the grin on my face as I got closer and closer to Moh in less than 5 seconds. Right before I land on Moh, I bring my arm back, and bring it around to punch him square in the jaw. I couldn't stop there though, and landed right onto him. I'm a fairly bony person, so Moh had to have gotten a elbow or two in that landing. I laugh and get up from the tangle of arms and notice him gripping his face.

"Owwwww." He groans, with tears in his eyes.

I smile and ask sweetly,

"So where's the tournament?"

**=*~`""`~*=**

The Earthbending Tournament arena was just like any other arena, seats all around the entertainment, and overpriced food. Sokka was the only one stupid enough to be scammed to buy the food. We followed Aang to the seats, in the front row and Aang exclaims,

"Hay front seats, I wonder why nobody is sitting here?"

As we sit down, a huge boulder smashes right in front of Sokka.

"I guess that's why." Sokka exclaims while huddled closer to Katara.

The arena goes dark, signaling the event is about to start. Everyone in the crowd hums in anticipation and excitement. A booming voice breaks the silence,

"Welcome to Earth Rumble VI! I am your host, Xin Fu!" A man with rippling muscles and hardened face raises his arm high to show that the event is starting.

"If he wasn't so old, he would be _very_ attractive." I purr out.

Katara swivels her head towards me in shock, before she could sputter anything, Sokka claps happily to the further introduction from Xin Fu,

"The rules are simple. Just knock the other guy out of the ring, and you win!" He leaps from the arena onto the podium overlooking the tournament. The bell rings, reminding me of the bell before a boxing match, He continued,

"Round one: The Boulder vs. The Big Bad Hippo!"

The Hippo was what I could say, a manly hippo. He was huge, absolutely huge. That could make people think that is why he is called the Hippo, but once opening his mouth to roar, two big front teeth, resembling a hippo poked out.

The Boulder was quite normal compared to the size of The Hippo, but would be a bodybuilder in my world. Actually, The Boulder has an uncanny resemblance to Dwayne Johnson.

The two competitors circle around each other, when The Boulder stops, points at The Hippo and jests,

"Listen up, Hippo. You may be big, but you ain't bad! The Boulder's gonna win this in a landslide!"

"Is he really speaking in third person?" I ponder out loud, making Katara laugh.

The Hippo didn't like that banter, and raises his arms above his head and yells out,

"Hippo...mad!" He stomps his foot in anger, cracking the arena ground.

"More third person? He reminds me of The Hulk…" I comment.

"Can you be quiet?" Sokka cracks at me.

I roll my eyes and sigh, waving my hand at him in nonchalance.

The Boulder bends three rocks towards The Hippo. Any normal person would fall flat from the speed and size the rocks were, but The Hippo only stood there as the rocks smashes into him. Nothing happens, until I notice The Hippo is chewing one of the rocks. I wince and mumble,

"No wonder his teeth are like that."

The Hippo starts jumping slowly up and down, making the arena tilt from his mere weight. The Boulder loses his balance and his face scrunches in concentration.

"Unbelievable, ladies and gentlemen! The Boulder is rocking the boat!" Xin Fu says into the speaker.

The Boulder teeters to the edge of the rink, struggling with the arena movement; he saves himself at the last moment by bending himself a small platform about the size of his body and bends it at The Hippo. The platform hits The Hippo's back and crumbles to the floor. The Hippo turned around, but isn't ready for the sudden jutting out rock that comes out from in front of him and throws him out of the rink.

"The Boulder wins!" Yells Xin Fu.

"How about The Boulder? Hes got some good moves."

"I don't know. Bumi said I need a teacher who listens to the earth. He's just listening to his big muscles. What do you think, Sokka?"

Sokka wasn't even listening, he just cheers on more of the fighting.

"Well, I agree with you Aang, I think he is too stupid to be your teacher." I add to their conversation. I didn't look at Aangs reaction because Xin Fu announces,

"Next match, The Boulder against Fire Nation Man!"

The new opponent had me raise my eyebrows. HIs outfit consisted of a cape and pants, all in dark red. Nothing about him screamed "_I'm a fighter, come and get me._" The crowd booed at him as he swings his fire nation flag around. I could hear Sokka yelling,

"Boo!" at the top of his lungs as Katara squishes closer to me, trying to give as much space between her and her immature brother.

"Please, do rise for Fire Nation national anthem!" He puts his left hand over his heart and sings in a horrible Russian accent voice,

"Fire Lord, my flame burns" He drops to his right knee and stretches out his left arm in exaggeration,

"for thee!"

As rocks are pelted at him and the crowd boos, Sokka screams,

"Go back to the Fire Nation!" He further more throws a rock at Fire Nation Man, hitting him square in the face.

I lean back with a sigh, no longer interested in this fiasco. The whole things seems cliché to me, and reminded me of my wrestling instructors back at home. They were husband and wife, both with huge muscles, not as big as these crazy peoples muscles, but pretty big in my world. They were great people, they were almost what I could consider friends, but they left once I became good at the skill of maneuvering out of choke holds and various other holds. This was when I was ten years old, almost eight years ago. I could remember the way they interacted with one another. The subtle looks they gave each other, the smiles and laughs they shared with each other. Whenever I rarely seen my parents, they were the exact opposite. They were cold to one another, only asking how my lessons were going and that's about it. I remember when I used to dream of meeting someone that could make me laugh, could share looks like that to one another, but that dream quickly left after my instructors left. As I mull over my past, I didn't realize that I was starting to become drowsy. I quickly swing my head up and stare out in the Arena. I groan when I see Aang, I wasn't surprised, out in the arena.

He was in front of, a boy about the same age, A preteen boy that on closer inspection, was blind.

"Are they fighting? What is going on?" I ask Katara.

"Aang thinks he found his Earthbending instructor. The boy beat The Boulder easily, now Aang wants to talk to him, without much progress."

Sokka is cheering on Aang to beat up the other boy, while Aang jumps around from flying rocks. Aang slashes and air bends towards the preteen boy. He didn't even see the slash until she felt it crash into him and send her over the rink.

I look over to Katara and ask,

"How are people not questioning he is an airbender?"

She shrugs,

"People haven't said anything about your hair."

I turn to her quickly and hiss,

"They give me weird looks! The dye should be out by now! But, noooooo, this world-"

Katara covers my mouth with both hands while swiveling her head back and forth.

"You can't talk about this right now Deanis!"

I mumble incoherently through her hands, resulting in her letting go. She points at me with a stern glare and shushes me. A sad Aang was standing by Xin Fu in the arena, being cheered on by the overly rambunctious crowd. I narrowed my eyes at Xin Fu and groan out at how old the man actually was.

"Well, let's see what he is like first before I say he is old." I mumble to myself. Katara stares at me with disgusted look than shock when I jump over the audience stand walls, to the main arena by Aang. The crowd goes silent, staring at me in shock. I waved at them and turned to Aang.

"Yo Aang, we gotta roll if you wanna…"

I looked over at a surprised Xin Fu and back to Aang,

"Find your guy" I finally finish, trying to not reveal any of Aangs avatar buisness. Secretly though, I was trying to decipher how old Xin Fu really was. I was starting to get frustrated because he has one of those faces that could be kinda young...but mainly old. I close the distance between Xin Fu and I, and stare at his face.

"You have some nice eyes…" I observe out loud. Xin Fu widens his gray eyes, but then remembers to compose himself,

"Well...thank you young lady."

I steer myself away from him quickly and groan out,

"Oh, you are old!"

Xin Fu narrows his eyes dangerously and grounds to me,

"I am your elder. I'm still a good age young lady."

I rolled my eyes at the "young lady" thing and bumped my hip at Aang and said,

"Let's go and vanquish evil my young friend!"

Aang smiled a little, but his shoulders were still slumped by not being able to talk more with the other boy.

"Well Sayonara old man." I saluted Xin Fu and lead Aang through the exit that lead out of the arena.

"Why did you have to do that?" Aang asks with sadness.

"I wanted to see how old he was."

Aang just shook his head and mumbles something about "girls" and "crazy" but I better have heard wrong, so I didn't say anything, trying to get a reading on what Xin Fu's personality.

**=*~`""`~*=**

Outside in the towns streets, the temperature is starting to get to me. I could feel my hackles start to rise, making me snap at every little thing. I believe now I have told Sokka to "Shut up" multiple times. But, I do have an excuse; he would not shut up about "his" new Earthbending Tournament belt, which Aang got from beating the Blind Bandit. I almost was about to strangle him, but some passersby stared at me making me re-think about my actions. Probably not a good idea to murder someone in the middle of the streets in bright daylight.

We were at the Earthbending academy, hoping that any clues about the little girl were here.

"Not you again…" breaks me out of my thoughts.

I turn around to find the kid I beat up earlier today standing by the Academy walls with a look of pure hatred and maybe a little bit of fear on his face.

I smile at him with a saucy grin, making him step back in fear and confusion.

"Mwahahaha!" I comically laugh at them. He shakes his head and turns to Aang, recognition in his eyes,

"You are the one that beat the Blind Bandit!"

"We need to talk to him! Do you guys know where he lives?" Aang asked with excitement.

I hold my hand by my mouth, blocking Aang's view. I whisper to Moh,

"He is ridiculously a huge fan"

Moh backs away from me with a glare and turns to Aang and responds like I didn't say anything,

"The Blind Bandit is a mystery." Moh builds affect by leaning closer to Aang, "he shows up to a fight, and then disappears." Moh ends his sentence with a whisper.

"Can you give us any clues?" Katara asked with impatiens.

"We really have no idea where he is, or really who he is! No one actually knows." Moh finally ended while scratching his arm in nervousness, giving me looks.

"Bro, I'm not gonna do anything to you so stop being a baby." I sneered at him with crossed arms.

Moh backed away from me and glared back.

"Okay, maybe we are asking the wrong questions. In my vision, I saw another boy, laughing, with a pet flying boar. Know anybody like that?" Aang asked with wide doe eyes.

Moh and his friend thought for a second, until his friend exclaims,

"Well, the flying boar is a symbol of the Beifong family. They're the richest people in town. Probably the whole world."

"I seriously doubt that." I whisper under my breath, resulting in Katara elbowing me.

Moh comments to his friend,

"They don't have a son though."

"A flying boar is good enough for me." Aang replies.

We turn around when I hear Moh whisper,

"Yeah you better leave."

I turn around slowly and hopefully give my best stink eye to Moh,

"What did you say?"

He backed away from me and then narrowed his eyes and said,

"You heard me."

"I like how you backed up before saying that." Sokka quipped.

"Come on guys, we can embarrass them or be the mature ones and leave." Katara reasons.

I smile at the earthbending boys and turn around, following the gang.

**=*~`""`~*=**

After walking through town, we walked by the arena. I stared at it, thinking about the coliseum of Rome until I remembered the invisible feeling on my back.

"Oh god! I forgot my bag full of all the clothes you got me!" I exclaim with worry.  
"What? Do you realize how much those were?" Sokka exclaims.

"Okay...do you remember where you left them?" Aang asks calmly ignoring Sokka.

"Yeah, in the arena where we were sitting."

"We can get them, it's okay." Katara reassures me while I almost start to tear my hair out.

"Alright, I can get them myself, while you guys go do his little girl business." I start while already sprinting to the arena. Sokka scoffs while Aang and Katara stare at me.

I waved them away as I run, until I couldn't see them anymore as I entered the Arena. The arena had some janitors cleaning papers and trash scattered around. One looked up at me, making me freeze in my tracks. He looks away and returns to his task at hand, cleaning gunk from underneath some stairs.

"Huh…The security here is..." I comment.

I really just needed to find the section number we entered to find our seats. I wandered around a little bit more until I found the section number that I think we entered through. Walking back into the stadium was like walking into a stadium that had a concert the night before. Food wrappers were in the abandoned stone seats and boulders were protruding from crushed audience sections. Okay, concerts don't have big rocks sticking out of the audience members chairs, but you get my point. The stadium is still very dark and musky inside, while the arena is illuminated with spot lights. Everything just looked sad without people inside to cheer and fill the room with liveliness. I peer around the stadium in silent thoughts until I heard,

"I'm telling you, The Boulder was standing right there. I saw the kid strike, but there was no earthbending. Nothing made contact. The Blind Bandit just fell out of the ring. The Blind Bandit took a dive and split the money with the other kid."

I duck behind an audience seat to hide myself from The Boulder and Xin Fu who were in the center of the arena.

I hear a huge crash, making my curiosity get the best of me. I peek above the seat and look to see an angry Xin Fu.

"Nobody cheats Xin Fu." Xin Fu growled out while staring at his fist.

I let out a quiet mutter,

"Again with the third person."

Might as well call this nation, "Third-Person-Nation." Okay, Okay, I'm not that good with nicknames, bite me.

Xin Fu swings his head around to my direction. I must've muttered louder than I thought. Xin Fus eyes narrowed at me and growled,

"You, that boy's friend."

I ducked behind the arena seat and let out a little, "Eep!"

Okay people, I do not simply "eep," but this guy, is taller than me by a mile, has some insane muscles, and to top it all off, is old and maybe wise.

I scurried behind seats as I hear "Smash" and a rumble behind me. You know in those movies where the girl looks behind her at the noise that might as well be her death, and then she pauses and then dies from the attacker or something like that? Well, let's just say I didn't pause once, because I'm not stupid. Xin Fu was bending fricken slabs from the main arena to the areas behind me. I got up clumsily on my feet and ran as fast as I could to the exit of the arena. I pumped my arms as fast as they could go, and my lungs were starting to feel a pressure from all this running. I would sometimes stumble from the huge ass slabs of rock that were bended towards me, but of course, I'm not going to stay in one place too long. Almost to the exit, almost to the exit my lungs screamed to me. The entrance had rays of dusty sun shining through the dust layer produced from the slabs stabbing into rocks. As I was going to take my last few strides to safety, A huge slab suddenly blocks my path to the outside world.

"You've got to be kidding me!" I screamed as I turn to see Xin Fu and The Boulder bend themselves a boulder of rocks. AS the rocks came hurtling towards me, I felt resigned. I really didn't know what to do. Use my fire bending in a place that hates firebenders and most likely die, or try and dodge and most likely die? Both options were oh-so-very tempting.

I came to the conclusion to dodge the oncoming boulders. Right before they could hit me, I jumped down from the audience sections, and into the jagged arena. With the two assholes who were trying to kill me. I landed at first on my feet, but gravity worked against me as I fell on my ass. Not that graceful, but hey, who cares about grace when I'm trying to not die?

I got up quickly and coughed up some dust from the layer of rocks.

"So you really think you can spy on me? Think you can cheat this game?" Xin Fu asked menacingly as he walked slowly to me. He cracked his knuckles to, trying to add more to his menacing effect, but he really needn't do that, I was already scared shitless.

"Okay… Okay,okay. I really actually needed to get my bag I forgot here… But seeing as you destroyed the area I had it in, it's probably gone…" I tried saying peacefully.

"Like The Boulder will believe your little girl tricks."

"Oh I forgot you were here." I pegged at him. The boulder bristled with anger and tried running to me, but Xin Fu stopped him. Xin Fu narrowed his already thin eyes at me and asked with a steel voice,

"I want to know if your friend, and The Blind Bandit worked together to get the riches."

"I can honestly tell you, they didn't. We have never seen that kid until today." I defended with a slight quiver.

"How should I believe you?" Xin Mu asked, still walking towards me.

"Scouts honor?" I asked.

"No, that's not gonna do little red haired girl. You would fetch a nice price to your little friends, or with willing customers." Xin Mu purred at the last bit of the sentence, sending shivers down my spine.

I stepped back from Xin Fu and stuttered,

"How about, a truce, or a friendly game of cards...or whatever you guys do to solve matters."

Xin Fu's pace sped up until he was only 6 feet away from me. I closed my eyes and came to a conclusion. I got into a firebending stance, and before Xin Fu could question anything, I leaped into the air and punched fire at him. He cried as the fire encircled him, or cried out in surprise. I wasn't going to take any chances to find out and sprinted to the lower level entrance that the competitors use. I kept on sprinting even when I heard rumblings and crashes, sending pebbles falling from the ceiling. I sprinted up stairs, around corners, and finally out a door that lead out into the outside world. It was dusk out, but I really couldn't stop and admire the view. I needed to leave this place, or anywhere near the arena. I sprinted to the first alley I could find, and zigzagged into more and more alleyways, losing myself in the streets that were structured like Rio. if I'm lost, then they will have a hard time following me, not being able to pin the location I am trying to get too.. I came to a stop gasped out air, bending over with my hands on my knees. Sweat dripped from my nose to the ground, and my legs felt wobbly.

"No time for that now, need to get to Aang and them." I huffed out and started slowly walking in the shadows of the alleyways, hoping to find any sign of Aang to save me from the new threat and enemies I made.

**=*~`""`~*=**

**CHAPTER IS DONE! *Slams paper down with the feeling of achievement* Did you guys enjoy it, or what? If you've got any questions, there is a button called "Review" that you can click and type in your question. Also, I made Toph a boy.**


	4. Chapter 4: The Blind Bandit Part II

**OMyGawd! I'm so very sorry for the late, super fricken late update. Life has seemed to kick me in the face lately, where I can't do the crap I want to do. Again I am very sorry. Thanks all for reviewing and reading my story! **

**Daenerys86****: Thank you for sticking with my story so far and reviewing!**

**It's great to know that you guys are enjoying it so far, and reviewing to let me know what you guys think. **

**Toph and Deanis will meet this chapter, mwahahaha. Let the chaos begin. **

**I don't own Avatar, only Moh's name and Deanis's Slytheriness. **

**By the way, I'm making my chapters shorter.**

**Words: 3021**

**Chapter 3: The Blind Bandit Part 2**

**=*~`""`~*=**

(Aangs point of view.)

The whole time I spent in the Beifong household, I received more injuries than I did in an encounter with Zuko. The boy, Toph, was a lot more stubborn than what I thought he would be. The whole time having dinner with the Beifongs, he has been kicking me whenever I mentioned or **tried **to mention anything about his amazing Earth bending skills. he even caused me to get a face full of soup! If I didn't need him to teach me how to Earth bend, I would have air bended soup all over his face, returning the favor. When he Earth bended my chair forward, resulting in my face plunging into my bowl of soup, that was the last straw. I couldn't hold my anger in anymore, the monks would be so disappointed in me. I stood up and yelled at him while soup dripped off my face,

"What's your problem?"

He followed suit and yelled right back,

"What's your problem?"

We both stomped out of the room in a huff (well he literally did with his earthbending.)

Now, at the moment, I am sulking out in the Beifong's immense gardens. One reason for my sulking, is I'm worried about Deanis. Another reason for my sulking is the desperate feeling of needing Toph to teach me. Sitting over a small stream leading to a koi pond was not soothing as I was hoping it to be. The streams trickles, the slow flowing fish, and the small breeze were not calming me down. My mind was running a million miles an hour. I didn't know what to take as my next course of action, find Deanis or try to seek out Toph and persuade him to teach me. I shook my head at trying to seek out Toph, he might bend more soup in my face.

"What am I to do?" I moaned while covering my face in my hands.

"You talking to yourself Twinkle Toes?"

I jumped up quickly, forming a defensive stance when I saw Toph standing not too far behind me.

"Relax. Look, I'm sorry about dinner. Let's call a truce, okay?" I slowly relax myself, hoping he won't attack me again. He jumps up on the stone railing on the bridge, putting his hands in his pockets.

"Even though I was born blind, I've never had a problem seeing. I see with Earth bending. It's kind of like seeing with my feet. I feel the vibrations in the Earth, and I can see where everything , that tree ... even those ants." he points to a stretch of grass with a small dirt mound, where at first glance you would have missed the ant hill.

"That's Amazing!" I exclaim in wonder.

Toph smiled sadly and said,

"My parents don't understand. They have always treated me like I am helpless."

"Is that why you became the Blind Bandit?" I inquired.

"Yeah."

"Then why stay here and be unhappy?" I asked.

He sighed and answered,

"They're my parents, where else am I supposed to go?"

"You could come with us."

His face contorts to a dream like trance and says,

"Yeah. You guys can do whatever you want. No one telling you what to-do, that's the life. It's just not my life."

Suddenly Tophs face morphs into surprise and he shouts,

"We're being ambushed!"

We turn to run the way back to his home, but one of the Earth Rumble contestants, The Gopher protruded his way out of the ground and blocked our path. I skidded to a halt, breathing hard. All of the sudden, I was enclosed in a small human sized metal cage. I vaguely heard Toph yelling obscenities to our kidnappers.

The Earthbending wrestlers surrounded us, some sneering and laughing at Tophs threats.

"I think you boys owe me some money."

I turn my head, as much as I could in the small cages, to spot Xin Fu. Xin Fu looked almost the same, but there was a body slung over his shoulder. The feet were bound, and I suspect so was her hands and mouth. Xin Fu smiled at me, a smile that knew, until his face contorts to pain. He throws the body on the ground and yells,

"I thought I told you to stop punching me!"

The person on the ground moans than yells back through her gag.

"Mmmf fa mmm MMM," her voice sounding familiar. I squint through the bars and spot dark red hair on the bound person.

"Deanis!" I shout.

Deanis moves her head towards me, her eyes widened in recognition.

"NNNNNNNGGG!" She shouts into her gag.

Xin Fu sighs, grabs Deanis's pony tail, and moves her head forcefully to his face.

"Enough. You have been a hindrance all night. Shut up or I will find other ways and means to make you quiet."

Deanis obviously gulps and nods her head rapidly. Xin Fu nodded, happy with her reaction. He stood up to his full height, and shouted,

"Alright, let's get out of here. Take them back to Earth Rumble!" He grabbed Deanis and threw her back over his shoulder with ease, but none too gently for Deanis.

The other wrestlers moved towards Toph and I, strangely reminding me of a pack of Hyena moths.

**=*~`""`~*=**

(Katara's Viewpoint)

Katara felt terror. She couldn't believe Aang and Toph were abducted! She remembered the past nights events, Sokka, and her found a note stabbed through with a knife. She remembered reading the note out loud with a terrified voice,

"_If you want to see your son again, bring five hundred gold pieces to the arena." It's signed Xin Fu and The Boulder_." She also remembered Sokka dramatically sinking to his knees (which she originally thought he was sad about Aang being kidnapped) but actually he was in blissful happiness to have The Boulders autograph on the ransom note.

She noticed Toph's parents a little ways away crying in each other's arms about their "defenseless" son in the arms of kidnappers. In the mist of the chaos, the Beifongs asked Toph's Earth bending instructor to save Toph, only Toph, because the Avatar isn't important or anything. She and Sokka, well mainly her, agreed to help save Toph, and of course Aang from the Earth Bending contestants.

**=*~`""`~*=**

(Deanis's point of view)

Getting caught wasn't my plan. I thought that running through the maze of alleys would throw off my attackers, but apparently, they know these streets like the back of their hands. After running and sweating through the dark and gloomy alleys, I found myself in the outskirts of the town. My spirit was feeling pretty good then, I escaped two bad ass Earth benders by tooth and nail and I didn't even break anything! That feeling came crumbling down when they caught me not too long after roaming around, wondering what I should do with myself, without knowing where Aang was. They came with vengeance; Xin Fu had a bone to pick with me I guess. When they appeared, I sputtered out some nonsense about how I should be left alone; I'm no harm to them, yada yada. Sadly, they weren't convinced by my silly persuasion, and that's when a fight should have happened. Don't go on thinking that a big bang happened between us, or I used my magic Fire bending that conveniently helps me escape things, helped me at all. I tried using my Fire bending, but sadly, produced smoke from the palm of my hands. Xin Fu and The Boulder had a nice chuckle about that one, even when one just through a measly small rock at me, to daze me in the fight. Now, Xin Fu had been keeping me slung over his shoulder the whole night until he threw me in a human sized cage and hung it from a thin chain alongside Aang and The Blind Bandit. When he first captured me, I was going to Fire bend my way out, until I realized it still wouldn't work and still smoke just came out of my hands.

"Aang, why is it you are always in trouble?" I moan from my cage.

"Well, I am the Avatar." Aang pointed out to me.

"You guys are always caught in stuff like this?" Asked Toph a little too eagerly in my liking.

"...yeah kinda…" Aang said suspiciously.

"That's awesome!" Toph exclaimed happily.

"Shut up!" Xin Fu shouted from below us.

I look down and see Xin Fu glaring at us with his ugly mean eyes.

"You think you're so tough? Why don't you come up here so I can snap that grin off your face?" Toph shouted. Aang and I look at each other. I mouth,

"He's pretty cool." Aang nods back to me.

Xin Fu said with narrowed eyes,

"I'm not smiling."

"This guy has the humor of a dead person." I jaunt to Toph making him laugh, when Xin Fu shouts at me, with a shaking fist

"I've had enough of you and your so called jokes!"

Just as I was about to retort to him, a shout comes from the opening of the arena,

"Toph!"

I peer out from the bars enclosing me and spot two unknown men, Sokka, and Katara running towards us.

They slowed down, while Sokka pulled out a brown sack.

"Here's your money, now release them." He throws it at Xin Fu's feet. He bends down and grabs the sack, inspecting the inside to see if it really was money. He signals to his cronies for Toph to be let down. As Toph's cage was opened, he ran to (what I presume is her dad) Dad and they escape to the outskirts of the arena without a moment's thought.

Katara and Sokka peer at each other.

"What about Aang…" Katara looks into my cage and her eyes widen,

"Deanis! This is where you've been? Can you let her go too?" she asks rapidly to Xin Fu.

Xin Fu pulls out a crumbled paper. He unravels it and shows Sokka and Katara.

"I think the Fire Nation will pay a hefty price for the avatar. Now get out of my ring."

Katara was about to shout at him until Sokka grabs her arm and asks calmly,

"What about Deanis?"

Xin Fu looks up to me and smiles mischievously,

"I think she will also be a good price to the Fire Nation once they learn a firebender is helping the Avatar."

"What? Hay! I'm not even from-"

"Go you guys. Deanis and I will be fine." Aang interrupts me with a glare. I gulp and nod my head, knowing what I was about to say would ruin my disguise.

Katara and Sokka back up, as the Earth Rumble contestants move forward menacingly.

"Toph we need your help!" Katara shrieks.

Tophs father says stupidly,

"My son is blind! He is blind, tiny and helpless, he can't help you!"

Toph rolls his eyes, I roll my eyes, and all that can hear rolls their eyes. Toph steps from his father's embrace,

"Gee dad, Thanks, but I can help them."

He walks away from his father, to where Aang and I were being lowered towards the contestants as they were about to leave with us. The contestants pause and look at Toph like they were caught with their hands in the cookie jar, or caught reading porn by their moms, whatever simile works best. Toph bends a wall on the contestants escape route, stopping them from leaving, which made the cronies realize they were in deep shit.

"Let them go! I've beat you all to a pulp before, I can do it again!"

He shouts with mirth, while some of the contestants shake in their boots...or shoes.

"The Boulder takes issue with that comment."

I look at Aang and whisper,

"Did that one speak in third person?"

Aang nods to me,

"I'm not sure why." He replies.

Suddenly our cages are jostled around until we are thrown by the fat contestant.

"AHHHHH!"

I scream while midflight. I think I heard Aang "Eep" but that could've been me. We land hard on the side of the arena walls.

"Oww…" I groan out between my teeth. I struggle in my bent cage, but a searing pain claws up my arm. I hiss out and try to crane my head in the small cage to see what exactly is wrong with my arm. I notice blood, that's what I notice. Not a small amount, but the amount where there is a long line of it running down my arm.

"Shit…" I ground out with panicked eyes.

In the background around me, I could hear bangs, and cries from the small Earth benders fighting.

"Oh no, Deanis!" Katara run up to my cage and bands over, looking at my arm.

"Yes, Oh no! Katara, Help me out of here!" I hiss out in pain. She nods with her deep blue eyes and bends water around the bars of the cage, turning them to ice. I could feel the cold radiating off of the metal, and still they still got colder. The bars shatter around me, sending little shards of icy metal into my already irritated arms.

I groan in pain, while Katara grabs my arms and jerks me out of the cage,

"I'm sorry, I'm Sorry!" She repeated. she settles me down on the ground as I lay gasping in pain, with my eyes squinted shut.

"I'm going to heal you Deanis with my water bending, so don't freak out if you feel weird." Katara hurriedly reassures me. I heard a strange sound coming from my left where Katara was sitting, and then a feeling of calm enveloped me. I open my eyes and see something that I will never forget. The beautiful glow of her healing element was something that will be a picture in my mind. The glow calmed me, reminded me of strange memories of when Lavae raising me. But the feeling stopped, taking the pain, and my calmness away. I stare at Katara with wide astonished eyes.

She smiles at me,

"You're welcome Deanis."

I look around in a daze, noticing the fight was over, with the arena looking like a battlefield mixed with a teenagers party.

Katara grabbed my hand, helping me get up.

"Looks like Sokka got Aang out of his cage too." She observes.

"Looks like Toph splattered the men's confidence all over." I reply happily.

**=*~`""`~*=**

The Beifongs were rich as hell is what I have to say once we made it back to the estate. They had garden shrub animal thingys in the backyard, gigantic koi ponds, and a freaking hot springs for us to take baths at! Honestly, I am in need of a long awaited cleansing. I just mumbled to Aang and the gang that I needed to cleanse myself of dirt, and left the angst and family drama to them. Honestly, I think I would be the worst person to try and persuade Toph's parents to have him come on a journey that Aang almost dies on every day. I mean, what parents would allow their kids to go on crazy adventures? Toph was a kid that surprised me, instead of being a snot nose brat, he is a snot nosed brat that can fight. He has shaggy bangs, and neck length black hair. His eyes were going to be lady killers when he hits puberty. They were a light shade of blue, obviously blind, but had a depth and mysterious beauty about them. Don't think I'm pining after a 12 year old, I'm just observing. The kid is about the same height as Aang, but once he its his growth spurt, he is going to be taller than me. My wonderful bath, I was rudely hauled out by a servant. They through my stuff out and sneered at me.

"What was that about? "I ask to Aang.

"Well, Toph's parents think he needs to be watched more from now on, so they throw us out." Sokka answers.

"That's unfortunate, I really liked him…" I mumble with a pouted lip.

"I guess we should go find another teacher for you Aang." Katara sadly says.

"Yeah, but not as good as him…" Aang stares back longingly at the Beifong house, turning back around and says

"I guess, we can go to Appa now."

**=*~`""`~*=**

"Xin Fu is a big ol' douche." I ground out to Sokka.

He nods, agreeing with me. I told them my story, they exchanged theirs to me. I told them about my experience in getting man handled; they told me more about Toph. Honestly, we were all sad and tired from our long day, and not getting the Earth Bender Aang needed.

"Waiiit!"

We hear a cry coming from down the road. We peek our heads over Appa's saddle and spot Toph in his Blind Bandits garbs running to us.

He stops by Appa panting.

"Toph! What are you doing here?" Aang exclaims.

"My dad changed his mind. He said I was free to travel the world with you guys!" he pants out with a wide grin on his face.

Sokka scratches the back of his head and says,

"Well we better go before your dad changes his mind again."

"Or Xin Fu wants to manhandle us again." I add.

Toph bends himself on top of Appa, landing by me.

I stick out my hand and happily say in a British accent,

"Pleasure too meet you!"

Toph turns his head to me in confusion,

"Nice meeting you too?"

I cough, forgetting he couldn't see my hand, while Katara glares at me, and Sokka tries to stifle his laugh.

Aang yells from atop Appas head,

"I can already tell we are going to get along just fine!"

**=*~`""`~*=**

**Oh my! If you have watched Avatar, I left you with something ironic, because well you know, the next episode. (If I could swivel my eyebrows like a caterpillar I would) I had fun writing this one, and am extremely excited to write more about Toph and Deanis and Katara just cat fighting each other. I'm glad that you guys are still reading this and always, always always, reviews are love! Again, reminding you guys if you are confused on Toph's gender, she is now a guy.**


	5. Chapter 5: The Chase Part I

**Okay, I've gotten a review that commented how the good stories always stop. Well, I haven't stopped; it's just that I've been busy. Volleyball, school, and senior stuff have really been keeping me away from this story. Also, Philosophy has been bumming me out on the lack of time I've had to myself. **

**I'm happy with the amount of people who are enjoying this story so far, and that I've changed Tophs gender, mainly because that brought my writers block to a stop with new possibilities. **

**So enjoy this chapter, I'm actually happy to have finally updated. **

**-Kydanson**

**I don't own Avatar, only the idea of Toph being a boy. **

**3792 words**

**Chapter 4: The Chase**

**=*~`""`~*=**

"Hay! You guys picked a great campsite!"

I peer over to where Toph is, and notice that he is standing in Appa's fur. The poor animal was shedding immensely from the changing seasons. Toph wiggles his feet in the blanket of fur and says gleefully,

"The grass is so soft!"

"That's not grass, Appa's shedding," Sokka replies somewhat disgusted.

Katara jumps down from Appa's saddle and raises one foot out of the fur with a sneer "Ew, gross."

I smile at them and look up to spot Aang sitting on top of Appa. Aang cheerfully says,

"That's not gross! It's all a part of spring! You know, rebirth, flowers blooming, and Appa gets a new coat."

Katara crosses her arms,

"Ah, the beauty of spring." she says sarcastically.

I laugh at her remark and how oblivious Aang is to her sarcasm.

"Katara, think of all the babies and stuff being born!" I interject to her. Katara ponders for a second and opens her mouth to be rudely interrupted by Sokka,

"Yeah Katara, think of all the loud crying babies." She glowered at Sokka and jested,

"That is not all that babies do!" She looks over at me for assurance. I smile at Sokka, only growing wider at his look of doom.

"Well, isn't that basically what Sokka does all the time?"

Sokka smacks his head and groaned out,

"I should've known you would say something like that, which isn't true!"

Toph laughed and said,

"She got you there Sokka!" Suddenly Appa sneezes, wafting Katara and Toph in fur. Katara sputtered out,

"Stop! Appa, Ugh!"

Toph held the fur in his fingers and held a shiny grin at Katara's misery.

Sokka turns away from Katara and says while bending down,

"It's not that bad Katara..." He turns around revealing a wig made out of Appas fur.

"It makes a great wig!"

"And a great beard of fur!" Aang jaunts back, wearing Appas fur. They start laughing at each other and try different ways they could wear Appas fur.

Katara sighs and looks over to where I am,

"At least we have another girl in the group, those two are disgusting."

"Hey if I didn't have allergies, I would totally be joining in on the fun." I say while putting the logs for the fire together.

Toph runs up to Sokka and Aang and raises his arms while laughing out,  
"Does anyone have a razor, because I've got some hairy pits!"

I think Katara rolled her eyes while coming over to sit by me.

"I don't know how we are going to deal with three boys…" She ponders out. I shrug my shoulder as I try sending out a spark to the fire.

"I mean two of them are 12, and Sokka's helpless." She goes on, while I try sending out another flame with my eyebrows scrunched together in concentration.

"Look at them now; they are still rolling around in the fur! They could get lice or something."

I could feel sweat start to bead from trying to bend out a flame.

"We have so much to do! The bed rolls need to be taken out! Soup needs to be made! We need water gathered. And they are still not doing anything."

The feeling of warmth in the pit of my stomach was sitting there, I could feel it. I tried reaching out to the warmth, but Kataras ramblings kept disturbing my concentration. I was almost there until she suddenly pokes me,

"Hey are you even listening to me?" I jerk away from her and ground out in frustration,

"Katara! Stop talking for five minutes please! Chill out and let me start the fire!"

She looks at me in surprise; she opens her mouth, then closes it and grounds out angrily,

"Fine."

I turn back to the pile of sticks to return to the task at hand. I could hear Katara shriek at the three boys,

"What are you looking at? Start helping out with the camp!"

**=*~`""`~*=**

I lounge around the fire that I never could start with bending. I finally gave up and threw my shoe at Sokka in frustration. The fire had to be started by Sokka using his flint and hinting at me on how I am a non-bender like him. I never could refocus with Katara staring angrily at me every few minutes. I couldn't understand why my fire bending wasn't working. I honestly couldn't think to why I couldn't grasp my fingers around the heat in my stomach. I could feel it lingering there every day, yet every time I reached for it, a barrier would stop me.

I watched the others do miscellaneous jobs for the campsite with anger, I saw Sokka looking at a map, Aang taking bags off of Appa, Katara making soup over the fire, and Toph just sat around with a piece of wheat in his mouth. Katara was glowering at him, and sometimes me. I already did all my work, the wood gathering, so she didn't need to be pissy with me anymore. Katara finally stood up and approaches Toph.

She says timidly,

"So Toph, when setting up we try and divide the work evenly between us."

Toph shrugs his shoulders and says nonchalantly,  
"Hey, don't worry about me. I'm good to go."

I laugh at that remark, while Sokka and Aang look at each other.

"Well, actually what I'm trying to say is, some of us might fetch water, while someone else might set up the fire pit, or put up the tent." Katara comprehends to Toph.

Toph stands up from lounging,

"Katara, I'm fine. I can carry my own weight. I don't need a fire, I've already collected my own food and look," He turns and bends a tent like rock structure and says,

"I've already got my tent set up."

"Doesn't the tent get cold?" I interrupt anything Katara was going to say. She glares at me and goes back to doing whatever she does.

Toph faces towards me and replies back,

"I have a blanket."

"That doesn't answer my question kid." I say.

"Don't call me kid!" Toph grounds out to me.

"Okay shorty." I say snidely. Toph glares towards me and stomps to his earth tent, and slams the earth tent door shut. I yell out,

"Oh real mature!"

Katara glares at me and seeths out,

"Now he won't help at all!"

"It's not my fault you suck at controlling kids."

She glares at me and leaves me to go fetch water. Sokka stares at his sister leaving and looks back at me,

"You really angered her. She's gonna keep your water dirty."

I stick my tongue at him and crawl into my sleeping bag, absorbing the warmth of the fire and the coziness of the furs. I listen to the others around me doing the little things they do around this time. The first night I spent with them, I wasn't too keen on the idea of sleeping on the earthen floor, or in the cold. I stayed awake that whole night listening to the strange animal sounds around me. I wasn't scared, but I wasn't exactly comforted to know that these animals here could be watching me, and come and get me at any time. After thinking about my first night of being in this strange world, I let the sweet null of sleep envelop me in darkness.

**=*~`""`~*=**

"There's something coming for us!" is what I hear from my deep slumber. My eyes squint open and I rise up out of my sleeping bag, letting the cold air bite my arms.

"What is it?" Aang asks while sitting up from Appas head.

"It feels like an avalanche, but also not an avalanche." Toph replies back while pressing his hand to the ground to feel the vibration waves.

"Your powers of perception are amazing." Sokka sarcastically remarks. I yawn loudly while Katara asks worriedly,

"Should we leave?"

Aang sighs out,

"Better safe than sorry."

I groan while crawling out into the cold air, spotting smoke coming closer to us from atop the trees. We all gather our gear as fast as we can and stumble onto Appa, leaving our campsite. We peer over the trees to see a tank like object coming through the trees not too far from where we were sleeping.

"What is that thing?" Katara asks.

"It's a tank." I tell her tiredly. Before she asks what a tank is, I yawn loudly and set my head down on the side of the saddle. I close my eyes and fall asleep quickly to the sound of the wind rushing by us.

**=*~`""`~*=**

I wake up to the sounds of voices. I yawn and work the crick in my neck. I scratch the back of my head and peer above the sides of Appa's saddle to see Toph and Katara squaring off to one another.

"Look I didn't ask you to unload my stuff! I'm carrying my own weight!" Toph yells at Katara.

"Look! That's not the point! Ever since you joined us, you've been nothing but selfish and unhelpful!" Katara shrieks at Toph.

I yawn again and hear Toph yell in his preteen voice,

"What? Look here Sugar Queen, I gave up everything I had so that I could teach Aang how to earthbend. So don't talk about being selfish!"

Katara reminded me of a volcano just before it erupts. As she stands there shocked, Toph walks away and bends another earth tent around him and sits in the darkness.

"Sugar Queen?" Katara squeaks at Toph. He bends the door of his earth tent shut, basically in Katara's face. "D-did you just slam the door in my face? How can you be so infuriating?" Katara yells out.

Sokka and Aang stand below me by Appas side. Aang asks Sokka,

"Should we do something?"

They stare at Katara banging and kicking Tophs earth tent in her tantrum. Sokka replies back, "Hay, I'm just enjoying the show."

"You and me both." I agree between a yawn. Sokka and Aang jump and look up at me.

"We thought you would still be asleep." Sokka says.

"It's hard to sleep with that banshee going off." I mumble with head resting on the side of the saddle and my finger pointed towards the still raging Katara.

Aang sighed and slowly walks over to Katara with his arms raised in a peaceful motion. He says slowly,

"Okay, okay you both need to calm down."

Katara turns quickly to Aang and glowered at him, she shrieks out with bloodshot twitching eyes,

"Both?! I'm completely calm!"

"Uh...I can see that." Aang inches away from Katara slowly, back to Sokka and I.

"That didn't work." Sokka says slowly while climbing up to Appa where I was sitting. I yawn, noticing that Aang airbender his way atop Appa, joining us.

"I think we just need some sleep, let her get tired and fall asleep." Aang mumbles from where he was sitting on top of Appas sleeping head. I nod incoherently while scooting closer to Sokka's bodily warmth. I set my head down and yawn out,

"I'm just gonna use your warmth…"

Sokka mumbles incoherently back at me and scoots closer in confirmation. We both fall back asleep as quickly as we woke up.

**=*~`""`~*=**

Again. Again I wake up in what felt like a few minutes, but really was a few minutes. I open my eyes and see everyone tumbling on top of Appa while I miraculously stay on.

"How did they find us again?" Yells someone.

I turn back over into my sleeping bag and mumble out,

"Maybe because you guys suck at sneaking."

"That really helps Deanis." Katara jeered at me. I wave at her and lay my head back down on the saddle and listen to their bickering, not being able to let sleep wash over me.

**=*~`""`~*=**

**(Sokka's viewpoint)**

I couldn't think clearly, I'm tired and that machine type tank thingy was still following us. We flew a little bit until Appa flew down onto a rock ledge and dumped us all out. Deanis still stayed asleep, somehow. I was jealous that she somehow didn't have to deal with Kataras annoyingness and Tophs standoffishness. I couldn't think clearly in my tiredness. Honestly though, I was glad she didn't try and come talk to us, I don't really think I could be around her without blushing every hue of red. Why I would be blushing is because while we were sleeping on Appa (Deanis and I) I must've gotten closer to her and wrapped my arms around her sleeping form. I woke up from a blissful dream of being with a certain Kyoshi warrior and realized that we were still in the air. Another thing I realized was that Deanis's face was very close to mine; actually we were both...cuddling one another. Even though we had sleeping bags between us I realized that A, Deanis is a girl, and B, she is an older girl with… (I blush while thinking this) assets that I didn't know she had. I shake my head before I turn into a tomato face and I jump off of Appa and say lazily,

"Forget about setting up camp, I'm finding the softest pile of dirt and falling asleep." I crawl into my sleeping bag and worm around to find a comfortable spot in the dirt.

Katara yells from somewhere behind me,  
"That's good because Toph wasn't going to help anyway!"

I groan out and try to cover my ears.

"Oh I didn't realize the baby still needed someone to tuck her into bed." Toph growled out.

"Come on guys, we don't know who is coming after us." The last part of Aangs sentence was muffled from La knows what,  
"It could be Zuko, we haven't seen him since the North Pole." Katara says.

After a few seconds or pregnant silence, Toph asks,

"Who's Zuko?"

I answer him lazily,

"Oh, just some angry freak who's tracked us all over the world."

I can feel Katara glare at me and ask mockingly,  
"What's wrong with ponytails?"

I sigh and point to my hair and tell her,  
"This is a warriors wolf tail."

Katara laughs bitterly,

"Well, it tells the other warrior you're fun and perky."

Before I could say somthing I heard Deanis yell from her sleeping area on Appa,

"Toph to answer your question, Zuko is the Fire Prince. You guys really need to stop arguing and sleep; your annoying yacking is keeping me awake."

"Oh I'm sorry if we're keeping you from your beauty sleep Deanis!" Katara sneers out.

Deanis's head pops up quickly over the saddle and she seethed,

"Katara! Be smart for a few rare seconds and remember we need to sleep! We are running from a tank and all you guys are doing is talking! Sleep for god's sake."

Katara managed to look a little ashamed with her shoulders slumping. I pondered over what "God" meant until Momo starting chittering in a mad fashion.

"No Momo, Shhhhhhhh….Sleeping time." I mumble out to Momo.

Quickly Momo leaps away from me and lands on a high rock ledge surrounding our camp. He chitters wildly, his ears tweak towards the rock rock cliff. Aang gets up from where he set his sleeping bag, followed closely by Katara and Toph. I slid my hands down my face and groaned,

"Oh don't tell me."

Aang exclaims,

"That's impossible! There is no way they could've followed us!"

Toph yells at Aang,

"I can feel it with my own two feet!"

Deanis swears from atop of Appa while staring at something below the cliff in front of us. While Aang runs over to the side of the cliff, smoke could be seen from where we were standing. Katara says nervously,

"We should leave…"

Aang says while still staring over the cliff at the rising smoke,

"Maybe we should face them. Find out who they are, maybe they are friendly…"

As I was about to tell Aang how helpless that thought is, Deanis runs up to us and breathes out,

"Aang, I honestly don't think they are friendly if they have been following day and night for us."

All of us move closer to the side of the cliff to see the tank stop moving. The door to one of the compartments of the tank open, releasing steam.

"Why in the hell do they have steam in their tank?" Deanis ponders.

Bursting from the steam came three horse sized lizards, they were dark with green stripes running up their backs. What surprised me were the three girls sitting atop the lizards, three girls that I last saw in the city of Omashu. I could see in my peripheral that Aang and KAtara were having the same feelings as me.

Katara squeaks beside me,

"It's the three girls from Omashu!"

We all change into fighting stances, Toph and Deanis following shortly after.

"You guys and your enemies are getting real annoying." Deanis hissed out. Toph smiled and said in a determined voice,

"We can take them, three on three!"

I rose my eyebrow at her math and corrected her,

"Actually Toph, there's five of us."

He snorted out and told me, managing to sound sheepish,

"Oh, I'm sorry; I didn't count you and Deanis. You know no bending and all."

Deanis and I snap at Toph with quick anger,

"I can bend!"

"I can still fight!"

Toph rolled his eyes and said smugly,

"Okay, three and a half on three, plus Sokka."

I could feel my face turn red while I groan out. Deanis mumbles out,

"At least that's better than Sokka." Toph just laughs while bending earth walls to stop the lizard riding Omashu girls from getting to us. I smile in happiness until I could see the lizards run over the earth walls like they were little fences, continuing towards us.

I say quickly,

"Well, we wanted to see who is following us, and there they are!" I put away my boomerang and notice the rest of the gang fleeing to Appa,

"I guess we can go now…"

Before Toph hops on Appa, he waits until everyone is on Appa, and bends a rock wall around us. Toph hops on Appa, letting Aang know he was onboard. Aang says a quick "Yip yip."

We stare at the wall to see it exploded, sending little chunks of rock everywhere. Dust fills the hole of the rock, letting us see dark silhouettes. Once the dust clears we see the three girls clamber through the rock hole on the quick lizards. Toph yells,

"What happened?"

"The girl blew a freakin hole through your rock wall!" Deanis screams in shock, making Tophs eyes widen. As we were flying away, the girl who came first out of the wall, shot a blast of sapphire fire towards us. We all ducked down (besides Toph) away from the heat of the fire. We look over the saddle and see the girls staring at us, getting tinier and tinier as we flew away.

"I can't believe they followed us from Omashu!" Katara yells.

"Who were those chicks? And what was with the blue fire crap?" Deanis asks with wide eyes.

I put my fingers to my temple and answer her with a frown,

"We aren't sure who those girls are, just that they were at Omashu. I have no idea about the blue fire actually; maybe can guess that it's just hotter than regular fire?"

Deanis turns away from us, mumbling something about how she should've just stayed in the swamp. I frown at her while rubbing my dry tired eyes.

"I think we could've taken them…" Toph grumbles from his corner of the saddle, his arms crossed and face pouting.

Katara squares off at Toph and manages to swing her arms madly while shrieking at him,

"Are you kidding me? That crazy-"

"Katara mind the volume man, my ears are losing their feeling." Deanis says between yawns, and with her hands rubbing her ears. Katara sticks out her tongue at Deanis, turning back to us while finishing her sentence noticeably quieter,

"As I was saying before I was interrupted, that crazy blue fire bending and flying dagger are bad enough, but last time we saw them, one of the girls took my bending away." She sits back down with her arms crossed over her legs in thought.

Deanis stares long and hard at us then asks,

"You are telling me that one can throw daggers and another can take your bending away? Jesus Christ you guys...mind telling me which is which?"

"The dagger throwing one is the one with the long sleeves, and the bending away one is the pink girl." I answer.

Deanis suddenly smiles and finally says,

"Hear that Toph, guess non benders actually have a chance."

Toph stuck his tongue out at Deanis replying,

"Sokka still wouldn't"

She laughs while nodding,

"You are absolutely right about that!"

I grumble at her and turn away from them, facing the lightning sky around us. If we didn't get sleep soon, those girls were going to be able to destroy us with their eyes closed in our sleep deprived state. I lay my head down in hopelessness, wishing for the safety of the South Pole again.

**=*~`""`~*=**

**Finished! I'm happy yet disappointed with myself of how long it has been since I've last updated. School and writers block don't help with me trying to update once a month. As always, I'm going to hope for some reviews, mainly on your viewpoint on my decision on making Toph a boy. I'm not too far into it where I can change him back, but honestly, I really like the idea of him being a boy. Also I wouldn't mind getting reviews about if my main character feels or sounds like a Mary sue. I hate Mary sues with a passion, so I would start hating my story once I realize it's considered a Mary sue. Glad you enjoyed, Kydanson out.**


	6. Chapter 6: The Chase Part II

**Well, again I am late in the update. I'm very sorry, but senior year. I've been filling out scholarships, doing classes, and applying to colleges. I know that's not a very good excuse but… sorry. **

**Glad you all like this story so far, and thank you all for the reviews! I am happy to read them and see your guy's reactions and opinions of my fanfic so far. Thanks too,**

**SheWolfTitianium: for the pleasant R&amp;R plus our talking about the fanfic. **

**Charlie: I'm glad you love this fanfic so far! **

**She Dictator: thank you for the critical feedback, which is always a plus in my eyes.**

**Kyoki no Megami****:**_**"I just wonder why exactly you changed her gender?"**_** I changed her gender because of all the gender swap fan art that I've seen. Also my friend and I thought it would be different and a cool idea to play around with. And Toph would make a hot guy. Zuko and Deanis is quite a questionable encounter in my head, they have major personality differences. Thank you for the review I enjoyed reading it. **

**I plan on trying to update this fanfic as quick as my wee little mind can handle in the next few months. So please enjoy this next chapter and…*swivels eyebrows* The Zuko shall be arriving in this chapter. **

**-Kydanson**

**I do not own Avatar, if I did, Zuko and Katara would have ended up together. I only own Deanis and Tophs new gender parts. **

**Words: 6,937**

**Chapter 6: The Chase Part II**

**=*~`""`~*=**

**(Back to Deanis's viewpoint to avoid confusion)**

I stare over at the brightening horizon, the orange hue seeping into the darkness of night. My eyes were burning from staring too long at the line of orange, almost like when you stare into a fire and your eyes start drying out. I yawned and surprise surprise, heard Sokka complaining,

"Oh no, the sun is rising! We've been up all night…"

Aang looks over to Sokka with drooping eyes and says calmly,

"Sokka, we'll be okay."

Sokka swiveled his head towards Aang and asks,

"Are you sure? I've never not slept before!" Sokka grabs his hair in desperation, he continues, "What if I fall asleep now and something happens? And something always happens!" He started to breathe hard with his eyes bugging out every time he took a breath.

"Someone flew off the cuckoo's nest…" I mumble, only to have Toph hear me with his acute hearing. He cracked a grin about to say something until Katara added to Sokka's two bits,

"Every time we land, those girls are there. So we'll just have to keep flying." she said exasperatedly.

"Appa can't fly forever." Aang replies sadly.

"Honestly, I don't think he can fly for a few more minutes." I tell them. Aang turns around and pats Appas head, while the rest of us sit in quiet.

Aang calls tiredly from atop Appas head,

"So...what's the plan?"

Toph yawned out,

"Don't know too tired...to...think." He slumped lower in the saddle, closing his eyes in exhaustion,

Katara smiles at Toph in a motherly fashion and says,

"I'm sure we'll think of something after a short nap."

Sokka nodded his head,

"Yes...sleep."

Sokka and Katara's heads start lowering every few seconds, falling asleep. I sigh out and look over at Tophs tense form; he was trying to stay awake.

"Hey you can take a nap too Toph." I quietly say to him.

Toph inclined his head towards me and tells me,

"I couldn't sleep if I tried, I can't be calm or relaxed on Appa. I can't see anything so…"

He tiredly trails off. I was about to nod my head at him, until I mentally slapped my forehead remembering his disability.

Out of nowhere, the wind starts picking up around us; I look around and see the clouds moving away from us. Our clothes start swishing madly from the realization that we were falling. I quickly grab onto the side of the saddle as we were losing altitude, fast. My body was rising, resulting in me latching tighter on to the saddle.

"What's going on?" Toph screams frantically while barely hanging on to the saddle. We descend faster as we start rising out of Appa's saddle, only hanging on by that said saddle. I could vaguely hear Aang yell,

"Appa fell asleep!" The wind rushed through my ears, making it harder and harder to hang onto the saddle. Suddenly the wind stops, making me fall hard onto the saddle. Appa emits a loud groan, alerting me of the oncoming trees Appa is flying into.

"Aang! You better be able to cut down trees or we are going to be impaled by branches!" I scream while bracing myself on Appa's saddle.

Toph shrieks through wide eyes,

"What?"

Aang pulls hard on Appas reins, with Appa jerking upwards to fly above the trees. We weren't in the clear from the trees; Appa broke off the top of the pine trees, leaving us to a bumpy ride. Appa soars down to the ground, too quick for a safe landing. I could feel myself coiling around the saddle as we hurdled like a comet to the forest floor. You know in the cartoon shows where when people are on really fast roller coasters, and their lips start moving back in an unappealing matter? Well I could feel mine doing that. I squeezed my eyes shut; gripping the saddle tighter between my white fingers and felt Appa impact with the ground. I flew forward, jarring my jaw on someone. My eyes fly open to see trees around us toppling to the ground. The area around us looked like a crater, almost like a comet actually did tear through the ground. Aang flew off of Appa and announced to us,

"He's exhausted."

I wanted to make a snipe at him about his observation skills but closed my mouth. My jaw throbbed from what it hit. I rubbed at it, after de-tangling myself from Sokka. He finally looked at me and then looked away, with red spreading across his face. I raised my eyebrows at him while crawling away from our pretzel. Sokka slowly sits up and rolls off of Appa with his seal skin sleeping bag. He muttered something when he thought he was earshot away from me. He trudged a little further from Appa and grumbled out,

"Okay, we've put in a lot of distance between us and the crazy psycho girls. I say we follow Appas lead and fall asleep." As he said his last few words he slipped into his sleeping bag and fell to the floor in a heap.

Katara walked around from behind Appa and snidely said,

"Of course, we could've gotten some sleep earlier." She shot a venomous look in Toph's direction. Toph was laying down snoring loudly. Katara continues acidly,

"If Toph didn't have such issues."

Suddenly Toph springs up while smashing the ground with his fists,

"What!"

"Oh-my-God." I ground out at them, to only be ignored again.

Aang stepped up to try and defuse the situation,

"All right, all right, everyone's exhausted, let's get some sleep!"

Toph stomps closer to Katara, his nose below her chin but he managed to be intimidating all the same.

"No I want to hear what Katara has to say. You think I have issues?"

Katara crosses her arms and sighed irritably, "I'm just saying. Maybe if you helped out earlier, we could've set up our camp faster and gotten some sleep. Then maybe, just maybe we wouldn't be in this situation!" Katara all but screamed the last few words.

"You're blaming me for this?" Toph asked accusingly.

Aang desperately tried to calm the situation,

"No one's blaming you!"

"No I'm blaming him!" Katara adds.

"If you guys are blaming people, I'd be blaming Katara and Toph." I seethed out from atop Appa's saddle.

"We didn't ask you!" Katara shrieks at me.

"It's not like you are any help! You can't even bend and you sleep all the time!" Toph yells at me with a red face.

"Well am I the one arguing over useless crap? Am I the one who can't let something drop! Katara I mean, really? You're gonna be pissed at Toph when all we need right now is sleep! We don't need this useless arguing when we can just sleep. I mean Jesus, you guys are keeping everyone up, Sokka is just acting like he is asleep, Aang needs to sleep, Appa definitely needs sleep and you two can't set aside your damn differences. Stop being children and think about others before your stubbornness." I yell at them, breathless after my tirade. They all stared at me with wide eyes, Katara's with tears in her eyes. Aang looked torn, the girl he loved crying, but he knew what I said was right.

Toph rolled his eyes,

"I may be a child; I never asked any of you for squat. I said I pull my own weight and I do! If there is one to blame, it would be sheddy over there!" He points over to Appa and me. I cringe when I notice all the fur everywhere and that Toph was right.

Aang yelled surprised,

"What? You're blaming Appa!"

Toph trudges towards Appa and pulls a handful of hair out,

"Yeah, you know how they keep finding us? He is leaving a trail everywhere!" He lets Appas fur blow away in the breeze for a better example.

Aang glided in front of Toph and yelled at her,

"How dare you blame Appa! He saved your life three times today! If there's anyone to blame it's you! You're always talking about how you carry your own weight, but you're not! Appa's carrying your weight! We never had a problem with just the three of us!"

There was silence all around the campground, until Toph stomps the ground, lurching his back pack from the ground onto his arm and says,

"You know what, I'm out of here."

Aangs face turns to misery while Sokka jumps in front of Toph,

"No wait!"

Toph all but bends Sokka out of his path and keeps walking away from us to the trees.

Aang puts his hands to his head and sorrowfully says,

"I can't believe I yelled at my earth bending teacher! Now he's gone." Aang slumps to the ground in defeat.

"I know. We're all just trying to get to know each other. And I was so mean to him." She looks down at Aang with regret.

Sokka comments from across the ways while looking into a cup,

"Yeah, you guys were pretty much jerks."

Katara glares at him and says sarcastically,

"Thanks Sokka."

"Well, he is telling the truth about Katara." I offered while laying on Appa's soft tail, pulling his hair out and letting it blow in the wind.

"I don't want to hear anything from you!" Katara snips at me.

"Whatever. I guess you guys were doing just fine with the three of you." I mumble out.

"I didn't mean that… I wasn't thinking Deanis." Aang pleads. I roll my eyes and only glare at the three kids.

"We need to find Toph and apologize." Katara tells Aang.

"Maybe wais it out till' the spoiled brat cools off." I tell them.

Sokka sighed and asked,

"So what are we gonna do with the tank full of angry ladies?"

"Throw a grenade them all Daryl Dixon style." I sarcastically tell them.

"That's, a...um, good idea but I have another one that's….better." Aang stutters out to me without trying to hurt my feelings that he had no idea what I was talking about. He walks over to me, and grabs a handful of Appa's fur and lets it blow in the wind. "Wait, so are we gonna shave Appa?" I ask.

Aang looks at me like I was stupid while walking away shaking his head.

"No, wait! what are we doing?" Sokka asks while walking after Aang and Katara.

**=*~`""`~*=**

We washed Appa's fur, and now Aangs plan was to lure the ladies after him by flying on his glider and leaving a trail of Appa fur, and not us. He was going to fly away on his glider and let the crazy ladies be cooped. While, on Appa, Sokka, Katara and I would fly away in the sunset, no problems in sight.

"Wouldn't it be better to split us up evenly?" I ask stupidly.

They look at me and Aang interjects,

"I should be the one to deal with them; it was Appas fur that they were tracking us with."

I roll my eyes,

"Aang, it was no one's fault, we were all tired. When we joined up on this team, we dealt with stuff together, not alone."

Aang nods along to me with a small smile on his face.

"So...how are we splitting up?" Sokka asks the million dollar question.

"What if Katara and Aang go...they are the better fighters…"

I say slowly, a little unsure with the idea.

"Ummm...sorry to say this, but you and Sokka would be completely defenseless...Maybe split us up by...non benders. Deanis and I, with Sokka and Katara...Just in case they don't believe us with the fur trail." Aang readily says.

"How am I going to keep up with you, Aang?" I comment.

Aang smack his face.

"I didn't think of that!"

"Can't fire make jet packs and stuff like that?" I ask while pondering ways to travel faster.

"You're not that good at bending." Sokka helpfully interjects.

"Gosh dang it!" I yell out.

"You can run!" Katara tells me with a hoping face. I groan out, but only say,

"Alright, let's get going before I get too lazy" I take a deep breath, and start running down the way Aang planned on gliding down.

**=*~`""`~*=**

Have you ever died? I mean not die die, but the way you just have no breath, like your dead? Okay a better simile would be where you see the light even though you are wide awake and you know you are nowhere near death? Or running and you drench yourself in sweat and you believe you might drown in your own sweat? Well, this is what is happening to me. Maybe I should've just ridden on Appa instead of running constantly after Aangs small form long ahead of her. At least being in this world for a while had made my running skills much better, my stamina has never been better. Also, using fire bending a little to make short bursts to launch me in the air helps to go faster. Picture how the hulk jumps, but a girl only rising about the same height of a basketball hoop with flames shooting out her hands and legs. I'm not going to describe my first few tries at this because, they were quite ugly. The only thing that really kept me going was the small town a couple football fields away from me.

Thinking back, these last few months have been definitely an experience. Learning about fire bending, yet still being an incompetent fool with the ability. Learning about Sokka being an incompetent fool all the time. And Learning about how much I miss my world. I miss my lovely bed, I miss a running toilet, I miss a shower, I miss the show The Walking Dead, and mostly, I miss Lavea. She brought all the things in my life my parents never did, she is my mother of sorts. In the tough times at school, she would come and get me, and bring me home. On the way home in her small beat-up car, she would tell me all about her family at home. Her oldest son, who was "smarter than his ma and dad combined," was just becoming a sophomore in high school. Her youngest boy was the one with the way of words. He could sway anybody with just a few sentences, her little salesman. I noticed something about her when she talks about her boys, a shine to her eyes, and a smile to her face. My parents have never had that expression. Lavea taught me how to speak my mind, and when to shut up. She taught me to be me, and think for myself when my parents expected a polite, obedient young girl.

I shook my head at my saddening thoughts, and focused my eyes ahead. I reared to a stop when I almost ran smack dab into the fence surrounding the little desert town.

"Whoo that could've been bad." I breathed out with relief.

I look to either side of the fence, and see where it leads to the entrance to the town. Following it, I come up with back-up plans that are in need to happen with the upcoming fight. First, I'm going to have to be mad the whole time, than somehow be able to fight like a seasoned fire bender. The bad thing is that Sokka wasn't here to annoy me, so there wasn't any festering voice to feed my anger, and I just started playing around with fire bending a few months ago. During my sad and negative thinking process, I came to the entrance to the small little sand village. I peered around, seeing the crumbling shacks and realizing this was very much a ghost town.

I walked in slowly and observed the quiet buildings, wondering what it was like with all the towns folk wandering about. I swear I saw a couple tumbleweeds rolling about, which adds to the effect that this town was like an old western village.

"Deanis!"

I start, and look over to where my name came from. Aang stood at the end of the village with his glider in his hand, his other waving at me. I walked slowly to him, my muscles burning each step.

"Nice place you got here." I observe.

"Isn't it?" Aang smiles out nervously, trying to keep the mood light. His eyes were sunken from the effect of sleep deprivation. When I got near him I collapsed on the ground and mumbled out,

"Hopefully Katara and Sokka bring Appa to us; I don't think I can run another mile."

Aang sat down in a criss-cross and patted my back,

"I'm glad you're here to keep me company."

"Well, I gotta see what those scary girls are all about, can't let you have all the fun." I laugh out while sitting up in pain.

**=*~`""`~*=**

You'd expect those girls to have come and attack us by now, but that would be a big nope. Now they chose to take their lovely time and let us wait in nervousness for their attack. Aang and I mostly talked about random things, which would be our conversation now,

"Yeah, instead of horses, we have the cars."

"Cars?"

"Well vehicles...things that are machines. Machines that move on four wheels and run on fuel, like that tank the crazy ladies were driving, but cars are smaller and faster."

"That sounds...weird." Aang ponders out.

"Well a flying bison is weird to me, when nothing can fly in my world unless they have wings, or are planes."

"What are...planes?"

I mull over that question, putting a thumb to my chin.

"Well, they are a lot like cars, but have non movable wings, and can fly long distances without getting tired. Only requirement is fuel too."

"Your world is a lot different from mine; you don't have bending, flying bison's, penguin sledding, and even polar dogs!" He named each subject on his fingers.

"Well our equivalent to bending is artillery. This is our form of weapons that are more made to kill, not so much for fighting. Think of a knife, but it's able to shoot littler knives from far places to kill its target."

He cringed at that smile and groaned out while plopping down on his back,

"When are they getting here?"

"Probably when we are grey and wrinkled from the likes of it." I respond, getting a small smile out of him.

I peer towards the entrance of the village, seeing a big sand cloud about a mile away. I nudge Aang in the side and exclaim,

"I think they're here!" Aang shoots up with a burst of air, and lands on his feet before I can even stand up.

"There's only one…" He whispers out with wide eyes.

"So they saw through your ruse. So they aren't dumb...Just what we needed, smart crazy ladies."

"The plan is you go and hide somewhere, and you will shoot fire at her from your vantage point. I need you to be safe, because this one is the most dangerous out of all these girls."

Aang quickly tells me, pushing me into one of the small alleys between the old houses.

"Okay, just be careful Aang, can't have the avatar dying trying to keep me safe." I try and let him know easily that my life wasn't as important as his.

He suddenly stops pushing me. I didn't hear anything from him so I turned around to see him glare at me with a face I would have never expected from him.

"Don't you dare imply my life is more important than yours Deanis, You're just as important to me as Katara and Aang is, even Toph!" He breathed out and continued

"So don't act like that! I will protect you whatever way I can, because you're my friend. Every life is important, that's what I learned from the Monks."

I smiled at him, and gave a surprising hug to him, a bear hug if you will.

"Thanks Aang, you're awesome." I pulled back and saw a big red blush on his face, and I cocked an eyebrow and asked,

"Why are you blushing?"

He stuttered out but I saw his eyes flick to my breast. I blushed scarlet when I realized, since our heights are different, his face was squashed between my breast from the bear hug.

"Uhhh… Sorry about that… I'll be sniping now… Um, okay." I stutter out while backing up into the shadows of the buildings.

The crazy blue fiery girl took no time getting here on her dragon lizard type thingy. I watched from my vantage point inside a two story building that I felt would support me on its old rickety wooden floor. They faced off exactly like an old western movie, all was needed was the song that was on the Clint Eastwood's movie.

"All right, you've caught up with me. Now, who are you and what do you want?" Aang asked with authority I hadn't thought a short twelve year old could possess. The girl smiled a cruel smile at him and answered with a cool voice,

"You mean you haven't guessed? You don't see the family resemblance? Here's a hint." She covers one side of her face with her hand and deepens her voice theatrically, "I must find the Avatar to restore my honor!" She laughs out loud, "It's okay, you can laugh. It's funny." Aang remains silent, making the whole situation awkward.

"So what now?" He asks.

She smirks at Aang and raises her arms,

"Now? Now it's over. You're tired and you have no place to go. You can run, but I'll catch you."

I shivered at her tone, her tone of knowing she's ten steps ahead of you, like this is just a game to her. Her eyes were narrowed, with a golden hue to them. She would have been pretty, if she wasn't so evil.

"I'm not running." Aang told her.

The girl smiled smugly, like she was laughing at a joke that some child just told her.

"Do you really want to fight me?"

All of a sudden someone appears from the alleyway across from me. They jumped off their weird...bird horse thing onto the ground in between Aang and the crazy lady. He created a dust cloud from the impact of jumping off the horse. The guy rises from the ground slowly, making the whole situation a lot more intense, and...Cheesy. He grabs the side of his hat that is currently concealing his face and takes it off, throwing it in the wind.

"Yes I really do." He said in a deep and dry voice. The voice of his had a distinct air to it, it reminding me of ice cracking. When I noticed his face, I almost gasped out loud. He was the guy or ghost I saw at the swamp! I shook my head to see if it really was him or a mirage, but it really was with that huge ass scar and burning golden eyes.

Aang jumped away from Zuko and shrieked,

"Zuko!"

That was the fire nation prince that was chasing them around? My vision was of him? My eyes darted between the three people, two were siblings, and one was the avatar that had to fight them.

"I was wondering when you would show up, Zuzu."

I stifle a laugh at that nickname she gave him. He bristled at her while Aang covers his mouth and failing to cover his laugh asked,

"_Zuzu_?"

"Back off Azula, he's mine!" Zuko yelled at his sister. The two reminded me of two children fighting over a toy.

She smiled coldly and slowly went into a fighting stance and said,

"I'm not going anywhere."

Now the next few moments were tense, almost exactly like a Clint Eastwood showdown. Azula stood as confident as ever in her cool fighting stance, Zuko was eyeing both his opponents in vigilance, and Aang… well Aang hurriedly went in his fighting stance with his glider pointed ahead of him, but his face was full of fright. The moment was of them sizing each other up, with every little move Zuko and Aang made; all three pairs of eyes would follow. Azula would keep a cruel smile upon her face, Zuko a scowl, and Aang fear. I sighed out loud, annoyed by these people who were sizing each other up, in my opinion the smarter way to go would be to team up against the bigger threat, Azula. I gathered heat into my fist, and at a last minute decision, shot a ball of fire at Azula, catching her off guard as best I can. The chaos had begun. Azula dodged my fire, and shot a glare towards my direction; I smiled meekly at her and blew her a kiss, then hightailed it out of that building.

"Looks like the avatar brought back-up." Azula snidely says.

I could hear explosions outside the building as I was making it out to the back entrance of it. Didn't want to be shot at when going out the front where the three fighters were battling it out. The building I left crumbled to the ground, which I assume was from Azula's destructive force trying to kill me. I stumbled a little bit from the force of the building falling, and coughed from the dust cloud it awoke. I navigated my way to the sounds of the fighting, and the small bursts of winds blindly. Suddenly, blue fire strikes my way, with me narrowly dodging it and with a stricken look on my face towards my assailant. Azula smiled at me while shooting fire jabs towards Aang, and with Aang dodging and creating a circle of air around himself to keep Zuko's and Azula's fire away from him.

"So this is the girl who hides and surprises me. That red hair is quite atrocious." Azula seethed at me through a smile.

"Uh, yeah, it's red." I say dumbly.

She throws a burst of blue flame, and I dodge again by knowing the result of the fighting move. My eyes darted around, till' I found a metal rusted piece of metal, in the shape of a staff. I sprinted towards it and dived for it just as another burst of flame was thrown at me, this time it wasn't blue. I gripped the pole with gasps, and jolted up.

"Deanis!" I heard Aang yell. I turn to him and see a huge ball of orange fire shoot towards me. I let out an embarrassing "Eeep!" and duck and roll away from the ball of fire. I look to the causation of the big ball of fire, to see Zuko standing there.

"You must be new." He growls out.

"Uh, nice to meet you too." I tell him.

He only narrows his eyes at me, moving his hands in a firebending motion. I quickly started moving, dodging and hopping around his fire blasts. As I get arms length away from him I swing my metal staff around like a baseball bat towards his head. His eyes widen but he dunks, and swings his legs out towards mine, to trip me I suppose. I hop above his legs and swing my body around him, sticking my staff between his ankles to trip him. He stumbles a little bit, with me sending a high kick to the middle of his back to send him sprawling to the ground. Suddenly, I see a jet of blue flame in my peripheral, resulting in separating from Zuko.

She sends more blasts my way, with me narrowly dodging. This chick was a lot better than her brother.

The sweat was beading on my forehead, with my muscles screaming at me. As I was dodging, i didn't realize I was backing up slowly to a beam of an overhead on a porch. I stumble onto it and gasp out when I realize another flame was soaring towards me. My eyes widen and I did the only thing that could save me, I fire bended more flames to deflect the blue flame. Since I don't have much control over my fire bending, instead of it being a small flame shield, it came out as a wall of fire, catching flame to the wooden building around me. The roof above was starting to creak from the flames.

"Oh come on." I mumble out while diving away from the falling roof. I get up slowly with a groin; pain was shooting up from my arm.

I look down to see a huge burn on my flesh. It wasn't bleeding, nor life threatening, but was searing. I squinted my eyes closed and took deep breaths.

"My my my, with a little training you could be a very strong fire bender."

I look up to see Azula walking slowly to me. Aang and Zuko must've been fighting somewhere behind her because the sounds coming from the other side of town was loud.

"Uh, most people with training become better." I tell her.

She narrows her eyes towards me and continues,

"What do you think of joining me? You just joined the avatar and his little weaklings; they must've not told you what is really going on."

I raised an eyebrow at her.

"Oh they didn't, the little avatar and his friends are trying to kill a whole nation. My family, my people, and without a second thought they will."

She paused and peered at me, waiting for a reaction from me, trying to read my eyes.

she continued, "My great grandfather was killed by the avatar, in cold blood. He was helping stop a volcano, trying to save his people, and the avatar came in, and killed him. We are only trying to protect the nations from the avatar."

"Yet, every time I meet a new village, they are scared of a fire bender. That means something." I tell her with knowing she was trying to use me. "Your words are of no use to me." I tell her, smiling from being able to use that saying.

She glared dangerously at me,

"too bad, you could have' gone somewhere." She tells me while raising her fist, getting ready to strike me. Then water shoots towards Azula, whipping her hand, making flame shoot out to the side of me. Azula's head spins to see Katara running towards me, with a water whip in ready.

"I guess you live one more day." She sneered at me, while sending blue fire at Katara, than running to where Aang and Zuko were fighting. I sighed in relief, letting my eyes water in pain. I groaned out loud, holding my arm gingerly.

"Let me see." Katara told me. I didn't know she was right by me, her hands hovering right above my shielded arm. Her deep blue eyes were staring at me with concern. The pain was something I've never experienced, a searing throb.

"Deanis, I need to see your arm to heal it."

I closed my eyes in pain and gave a little nod, releasing my arm from its hiding place. I moved it slowly to Katara and she gently grabbed it. I hissed out from her fingers grabbing the reddening skin around the burn. I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping she would heal it already. The whirring sound of the healing blew to my ears; she made sure I wasn't in too much pain when her fingers never touched the burn for too long.

I started breathing evenly, and opened my eyes when the pain kept residing.

"I thought it was going to scar!" I commented, bewildered by the abilities of healings. Katara smiled at me with a knowing smile,

"It would've if I wasn't here to heal it. You're welcome now let's go help Aang and Sokka." I nod at her and stand up with the help from her outstretched hand. I flexed my forearm where the burn was, and put my hand in a fist, amazed that it looked good as new. I shook my head, and gathered my wits, running after Katara to join the fray.

Although it was four against one, we still couldn't take Azula down. She was always ten steps ahead of us. Whenever we were on the offense, it would quickly turn to where we were on the defense, trying to not get burned by her blue fire. At the moment, Katara and I were chasing Azula, who was chasing Sokka. Hopefully Sokka had a plan, because Azula would scold him pretty quickly. We run through an alley that leads to the outskirts of the village. Sokka skirts to the side of a building, making Azula halt. She didn't have enough time to try and attack him because Katara sent a water whip at her. Azula dodged the water whip to where I shot a jet of flame. She dodged that too, just about to send a jet of flame at me, until Azula's feet slide to the left. Or the Earth moved underneath her. I look to the side to see Toph standing there, with his fist raised high.

"Thought you guys could use my help."

"Thanks!" Katara happily responds back at Toph. Azula's eyes dart between the five of us. She sprints away from us, knowing what her chances of getting away from us unscathed would be. She leaps over some crates, only to bump into a big bellied man, bouncing off of him with a stumble. Zuko appears next to the old man. Azula stared at all of us, realizing she ended up in a corner of the fence enclosing the town. Sokka, Katara, Aang, big bellied man, Toph, Zuko and I cornered her, with our defenses raised. She backed up further into the wall,

"Well, look at this. Enemies and traitors, all working together. I'm done." she raises her hands in surrender, "I know when I'm beaten. You got me. A princess surrenders with honor."

I raised my eyebrows at her; someone with her personality doesn't just give up. We all stared silently at her, no one wanted to move, this was a standoff between a snake, and bunnies with swords. She could strike any moment without any remorse, and the rest (at least I think so) couldn't strike her with fear we could kill her. She gives us all a look, a look that she knows something we don't know. Her look to me was a curious one. There wasn't hatred in it; there was only a look of someone that is measuring what a puppy can do with its tricks. She looked through all of us, measuring us somehow. She smirks, and just as she smirks, she shoots a bolt of lightning to the big bellied man. He screams in pain, and falls to the ground.

Zuko screams in anguish.

We all turn back to Azula, shooting all our different elements to her, creating an explosion. A cloud of dust engulfs everyone. I cough from the explosion to only feel something run into me, with a cruel whisper in my ear,

"Remember what you could've chosen."

I shivered from recognizing that Azula could've done anything else to me, I was in her mercy. Once the cloud of dust cleared, we all peered at one another, and they realized Azula escaped. We all see Zuko kneeling by the big bellied man. I couldn't see his face, but I could tell that he was grieving and horrified over the big bellied man. Katara steps closer slowly,

"Zuko...I can help him."

Zuko's head jerks to us, his face revealing wet eyes. He shoots a jet of fire at us yelling,

"Leave!"

We scatter away from Zuko's anger. Away from the grieving boy and someone he loves.

**=*~`""`~*=**

We floated on top of Appa through the white and pink clouds. We were all silent on Appa, sadly feeling for Zuko. Even though he is the bad guy, we still felt for him. After learning that was his uncle, the whole situation was a whole lot more understandable in his reactions. Once finally able to sit down and think, I was stumped by my vision of Zuko. Why was the swamp telling me about my fire bending? I found the fire within, but what did it have to do with the angsty emo.

"What did Azula say to you?"

Katara asked me, shaking me out of my burdened thoughts.

"Just how you guys are terrorists and you've all been lying to me. I think she thought I'm a fool or something because there are no way you guys are trying to kill the whole fire nation."

"Well we are going to kill the fire lord." Sokka said without a beat.

Aangs eyes went downcast, while the rest of the company seemed to not have any remorse about planning to kill someone.

"I don't think this world is much different from mine, but killing people come with a price." I tell them.

"This fire lord killed our mom, and many other nations to add." Sokka seethed to me. I cringed and kept my mouth closed the rest of the ride to a camp far away from where we last saw Azula. Everyone besides Toph and Aang succumbed to sleep. I crawled up to Aangs small figure sitting atop Appas head.

"How are you?" I ask him.

"Good." he mumbles to me.

"Hmmm." I look over to him sadly.

"Aang… do you have to kill him?" I ask him, making him jolt.

"I don't know…" He tells me with a troubled face.

"Aang...can you think of something else to do to save this world?"

"I don't know Deanis...I'm tired and I don't want to talk about this."

I nod at him and stare out ahead of us, at the setting sun.

"Just so you know, I'm always going to support the tough decisions you make. You've accepted me even though you barely know me, the best I can do is to help you. So Aang, you're not alone." I tell him, still staring ahead.

I didn't realize when he looked at me, with an amazed expression and a tear on his face.

"Thanks Deanis… you can tell me anything too. We'll get you back to your world."

"I don't think it's possible anymore." I tell him with a throaty voice.

We're silent for the rest of the night, troubled by our many thoughts running through our heads. Not knowing what is to come next.

**=*~`""`~*=**

**Okay, I finally got this chapter done. For some reason, it was so hard to stick with. I had the worst writers block with this chapter. Some parts will seem plain, and I'm sorry, I'm sorry how late it was too. Also, her involvement with Zuko was a minimum. I did this because I don't want to make her so special. Zuko only views her as a hindrance in his way from his lovely obsession with the Avatar. I'm not even sure I'll make her a couple with him, because I love all the characters. I love Sokka, Aang (even though he is just twelve XD). I'm also all for Azula too, mainly because her story is so sad. I like the prospect of Toph maybe, or even Jet. Actually Jets annoying that won't happen. Just expect something crazy, or something expected. I'm going to let the writing choose Deanis's prospects, or even let her be proud independent women, or make her fall in love with Fire Lord Ozai! (haha kidding, that's not gonna happen). She is older than the rest of the company. Again I'm sorry how late this update was, but I hope you guys enjoy it. I want to know some of your reactions to Azula, she was fun to write with. Also, I want to know what you thought of my shitty fighting scenes. Sorry:/. Always, reviews and responses are love. I enjoy reading them and responding back to you guys. Hopefully you enjoyed this. **


	7. Chapter 7: Bitter Work

**I've officially finished High school, graduation was definitely hectic. I'm so relieved to be back into my calm routine of working and being home for the summer. Sorry for the lack of updating, but having a writer's block, and being busy is hard to surpass. I haven't forgotten about this story, and I figure I should finish as much as I can with it before I go to college in September. **

**Please enjoy!3**

**Thanks to these reviewers: **

_**To ThGaaraRules29, thank you to the lovely review! I was thinking of just stopping this story with the little amount of people reading it. But I got your review and figured I should just keep going. **_

_**Well here you go Yuki, here is the updation. **_

**I've done a lot of thinking, and I'm going to make this chapter a filler chapter. Why, because this whole episode is about Aang learning the basics of Earth Bending. I plan on making this just a little snippet into Deanis's personality, and her relationship with Katara. As you can guess, this chapter is a short one. **

**Skip this chapter if you want too, I advise you do because it's pretty dang bland.**

**-Kydanson**

**I don't own Avatar at all, if I did, I would've explained what happened to Zuko's mom in the show and not just the comics.**

**words: 3,000. **

**=*~`""`~*=**

_Fire was everywhere. Above me, around me, and on me. Strangely, I didn't feel it, only a tingling sensation on my skin. I stared around me to see that I was in a big room, high ceilings, and pillars leading up to a raised floor. The raised floor was on fire, but I could see a silhouette sitting on top. I couldn't see their face, but I could feel the aura they spilled out. It was cold, it was dark, and I knew that I was at their mercy. _

"_You have no control…" _

_Came the voice. It was a man's voice, a voice that shook my skin, scaring my nerves to different places. _

"_You have power, yet no control…"_

_Suddenly the flames around me swirled into a tornado of flame, with me stuck in the middle. I screamed a long silent scream. There was no pain, but I could see the scene change around me from the big flaming room to a camp ground. I could see Aang, Toph, Katara and Sokka asleep, not knowing of my out of control flames. I tried screaming at them to wake up, but they only slept. The flames were getting harder to keep around me, pulling me apart every time the flames tried reaching for my slumbering friends. I could see that the tornado was lowering, but getting wider. It was turning into a circle around me. I screamed as I felt the elastic band of my control snap. The flames went everywhere, like an explosion. My screams were still silent, but I could hear the agonizing screams of my friends burying alive. I sobbed when I heard Aang yell at me,_

"_How could you do this?" _

_When Sokka said,_

"_I knew we should've left her drowning in that swamp."_

_And lastly what broke me was Katara seething to me through the flames, her body oddly not burnt and her eyes a glowing ember,_

"_You're just like the person who killed my mother. Just fire nation scum." _

_I feel down to my knees and covered my eyes. I was still on fire, there was no stopping my flames that consumed everything around me. Turning everything to ash, turning the whole world around me to ash. I felt something on my shoulder. I look up to see golden eyes that were narrowed at me. A cruel grin upon her face. Azula's lips curl up to reveal thin razor fangs while her grip on my shoulder tightens,_

"_You're just like me only worse, I know what I'm doing, you can kill without knowledge. As you are asleep right now." I tried throwing her off, sobbing and screaming at her. She grabbed my neck with a crazy laugh that was leaving her lips. There wasn't a breath in between her laughs, just a never-ending record. _

_I could feel her fingers tighten around my neck, the flames starting to crawl into my silent screaming mouth. _

_Azula screams,_

"_Deanis!"_

"_Wake up!"_

My eyes shoot open, only to see Katara in front of me. Her eyes were wide and filled with worry.

I gasped, my chest heaving with every gasp, and a clear sheen of sweat was on my body.

"What's going on?" I asked disoriented.

"You were having a nightmare." Katara says calmly.

I sit up, still breathing deeply. Aang and Sokka stare at me with wide eyes.

"You were screaming really loud…" Sokka tells me.

I could see Toph over by his makeshift rock tent, he was standing facing my way. His face was screwed into a worried one.

"What was it about?" Aang asks me.

"Just… well… Azula was in it." I tell them apprehensively.

"No wonder you were screaming." Sokka sympathizes.

The sky around me was still dark, a lighter blue was at the horizon. The morning was reaching us. We were currently residing in a canyon. The place was a lot like the Grand Canyon, but not as grand and more plants were to be seen there.

"We'll talk more about this in the morning Deanis." Katara told me sternly, while pulling her seal-skin sleeping bag closer to me.

"You guys shouldn't treat me like a kid." I tell them.

"From the way you were screaming, it sounded like you were being tortured right by us." Toph said from across the way.

I cringed, mainly because I woke them all up. Everyone started crawling back to their sleeping quarters. Aang was the last to leave his eyes from me, his eyes were filled with worry. He knew I kept something from them.

"I'll tell you in the morning Aang." I say quietly. He nods tersely while walking to Appa.

I plop back down on my sleeping bag that we bought in a small village a couple weeks back. I breathed out deeply and thought about my dream. The "control" on my power has been playing through my thought lately. Mainly because my control is so limited. I can literally make explosions, but usually catch things around me on fire. A perfect example was the first time I tried fire bending, burning that mayors house down. The man whose voice rocked my very core, I had not a clue whom he was. I only know he scared me, a lot more than Azula. Telling the group about my fears with the controlling of fire, would be something bad. I didn't want them to know how scared I actually am in this world, that my dreams can catch them on fire. I look over to Katara, who was sleeping not an arm's length away from me. I wasn't going to be sleeping again tonight with my fears building more blocks upon one another. How was I going to bend fire again, without my fear showing? The crew was bound to notice, especially Aang who had a knack of knowing people's feelings. For a twelve year old, he was quite observant.

I wondered how long I kept them up, considering we haven't had a full nights rest since we've been trying to put a considerable distance between the crazy girls. My mind kept bouncing around the secrets I've been keeping from the group. The fear they will find out I don't know what I'm doing, that I don't know how to get home, and that I had a vision of the guy who has been chasing them across the world. I sighed angrily while getting up, not disturbing the sleeping occupants around me. I tipped-toed around Katara, resuming my regular walk when I felt I was earshot away from them. Stopping myself, I peered around, to only see the group sound asleep. The group of children. I was with children, and I dreamt of them all burning, by my hand. They were kids who should not be doing what they are doing. They should be playing games, falling in love, not trying to save the world from an evil villain. I was the adult among them, and I felt like the least in control out of all of them. I turned away from them, and saw a ridge with a desert tree on the edge of it. The roots spidering through the earth, being able to be seen on the cliff edge. I climbed the cliff, which wasn't a pretty sight, I kept slipping on to my bum. I climbed up, and saw the peaks of the sun's beams in the horizon. It was waking up, bringing all of my dreams behind me. I could feel my core tingle, I could feel it growing, my power growing with the rising sun. I closed my eyes, plopping down at the trunk of the tree. The orange sky was enveloping all black and blue to become a light. My dreams were to become that, my fire bending will change from the darkening flames, to the light ones of the sun. I closed my eyes, a small weight lifting from me. I felt myself succumb to sleep.

**=*~`""`~*=**

"Today's the day!"

My eyes open blearily, the first thing I notice is the crick in my neck. I sat up, massaging my neck, silently cursing the tree. I turn to see where the source of the noise came from, to only see Aang stretching his arms ecstatically beside a sleeping Sokka.

"Can you believe it? After all that time searching for a teacher, I'm finally starting earth bending!" While Aang was announcing to us with jubilance, Momo was getting excited flew onto the unexpecting Sokka.

"And this place, it's perfect, don't you think? Sokka?" Aang asks Sokka. Sokka wasn't feeling Aangs mood, quite the opposite I'd say with that award winning glare shot at Aang.

"Oh, you're still sleeping, huh?" Aang asks Sokka with an apology. Sokka grumbles and puts his head down into his sleeping bag.

"Sorry." Aang whispers with a cringe.

All of a sudden, rumbling was going through our small little enclave of a camp, pebbles were jumping from the rumbles. The source of the rumbling was none other Toph's earth bender tent. The earth slabs that make the tent a tent suddenly were shot out in all different directions. Dust was enveloping the area the tent once was, until Toph walked out with his arms crossed and yelled out,

"Gooood morning earth bending student!"

I scratch my ear at his loudness so early in the morning.

We all stare at Toph, besides a curled up sleeping Sokka. Katara was rubbing sleep out of her eyes, Aang was basically radiating energy, and I was staring from my higher vantage point at them. Toph walks over to our direction with his hands still crossed, smiling a big white smile.

"Good morning master stifu." Aang clasps his hands together and bows to Toph.

"Hey you never called me master stifu…" Katara remarks tiredly and confused.

"Well if you think I should…" Aang scratched the back of his head.

Sokka raised his head up, glaring at everyone. He started grumbling more, earning an apologetic look from Aang.

"Sorry Snoozles, we'll do our earthbending," Toph whispers in emphasis, "as quietly as we can." Toph smirks, clasping his hands together and stomping his foot. Poor Sokka, laying back down to get some sleep, was catapulted in the air from Toph's earth pillar. Sokka shot into the air, him screaming bloody murder all the way up. I cringe at the high notes his voice makes. Sokka comes down quickly, screaming still in his cocoon of seal skin. Aang quickly makes a whirlwind of air below Sokka to slow his fall. Sokka pauses a little in the wind, then plops to the hard earthen floor. He emits a short "Oomf."

He sits up, he glares at all of us, including me. He stands up and scurries with his seal skin sleeping bag still on behind some rocks. He probably went back there to sleep some more, and at least it is in the shade.

I stand up from my perch, or humble alcove beneath the tree, and climbed down the sloped hill that led to the rest of the group. Aang glanced my way and nodded to me, Katara didn't look up from her project of stirring some cloudy water, Toph didn't glance once towards me. Considering Toph was blind, that's okay. Toph nodded his head at Aang and said,

"We better be getting out of here, let the ladies do their lady stuff. We get to go do man stuff."

I looked at Katara, and she looked at me. We both sputtered out giggles that grew into full out laughter. We didn't notice Toph's cheeks redden and Aang just shook his head. They both left while we were trying to cool down from our fit of laughter.

"Did he really say 'man stuff'?" Katara asked.

"Yeah… I think so!" I sputtered out.

She giggled and looked down at her soup, frowning a little. She made stirring motions with her hands, and the water started stirring itself.

"This world still amazes me." I tell her, staring at the bending liquid.

"What was yours like?" She asks me. I look up to her questioning big blue eyes.

"Well, people were a lot alike I guess. But from what I've seen on your map, my world is a lot bigger. We have different races, seven different continents, and an unfathomable amount of countries.

"Seven?!" She squeaks out.

"What do you mean by race…?" she asks when she collects herself.

"Well, you know how you have different bending, fire, water,etc. Well, we go by skin tone, place you're born, and the blood you have in your body." I pause, noticing her confused look.

"Think of it this way, noticed how Aang and Toph are pale, while you and Sokka are tan. Or the boulder was really tan, and Zuko and his sister are very pale. Well in my world, you, Sokka, and The Boulder would've been the same blood, same nation, same race because you guys are tan. Now Aang, Toph, Zuko, and Azula would be the same because of their paleness. But this is just hypothetical, lots of people in my world ar tan and can be the same race as a pale person."

She stared at me, with a disgusted look.

"So… I'd be related to Zuko and Azula in your world!" She exclaims.

"No, no no no. You'd be the same race, but not related! Okay… so I'm not really pale or tan, and I got these speckles all over my face, and originally my hair is brown-"

"You have brown hair?! But it's red…" She asks me with an astonished face. I cover a giggle.

"In my world, our technology is way ahead of yours. One of them is the ability to dye hair, which lots of women, and some men, do."

"Dye? Like what you do with clothing?" She asks me with a dubious expression. I nod at her and her face turns to astonishment.

"That's so harmful! Why would anyone put that stuff in their hair?"

"Well, we aren't super smart in my world, you don't need to be with the way technology is going. We just do it because others are."

She frowns at me and then asks,

"Why red? Why would you want that color for the rest of your life?" She asks.

"Welllll, it's supposed to be temporary, yet it hasn't' come out. It was supposed to go away months ago… I think coming to this world messed everything up." I ponder to her. She just shakes her head,

"Aang has Tattoos, and those are permanent. Things are a lot different here. Your world is decades before mine. But with our technology, you have your bending. With all the science in the world, I don't think we could ever do anything remotely close to yours."

She's quiet for a few seconds and then asks me,

"What race are you?"

"I'm quite a bit actually. I live in a country where we have many different ethnicities, and we get along for the most part. I'm really Irish, like my grandpa would celebrate Saint Patrick's Day like it's the Fourth of July… I've also got me some French, English, and I think a tiny bit of Russian." I ponder a little bit, thinking if I forgot any others, when I notice Katara's wide and shocked eyes. She sputters out,

"How? How are you all of them!"

"Well… things are a little different than how they are here. Well, you have to have ancestors that weren't just Water Tribe? Right?" I ask her.

Her eyes went above me, clearly she was thinking. She opened her mouth than closed it,

"I don't think so"."

I cringed when I thought about the possible inbreeding that could've happened along those lines in the small Water Tribe. We have some good ol' Game of Thrones action everyone.

We sat in silence, her processing the information I gave her about my world, and me understanding even more that this one is a lot more barbaric. Most of the men I've walked by look a lot alike. There aren't any blondes, which I prefer, and most don't have dark brown eyes like mine. A lot of the people to me were quite plain, there wasn't really any pull I felt to them. The most exotic people I've seen was Katara, Sokka, and Zuko. And none of them were part of the Earth Nation. Zuko, ever true his name is said, anytime the word "Fire" is said, I think of him. It's not some school girl crush or any attraction I feel, its interest and curiosity. Why did I see him in that vision? What was his role in me being in this world? Would he be the key to me finding my home?

"What are you thinking about? Your eyes got all lively."

I jumped a little at Katara's breaking of my thoughts.

"Just about... Um boys?" I told her truthfully.

"Deanis! I never would have thought of you being interested in any of them here!"

"What? No!" I yelled at her.

She shrunk under my ferocity behind my voice. She narrowed her eyes at me, and shook her head.

We sat in silence again, with only the recurring sounds of Aangs and Toph's lessons echoing in the canyon.

"So since we are on the topic of boys… you and Aang?" I asked her while waggling my eyebrows. She jumped and laughed at me.

"Aang? He is like my little brother!" her laughing faded and she took a more serious note,

"Anyways, we shouldn't be talking about boys...there's a war going on…" She looked down and focused on her Stew. We both shut our mouths, and felt a somber tone.

"What's for breakfast?"

"You mean Lunch, Sokka." Katara corrected him while returning to adding spices to her stew.

"Did you get a nice nap?" I asked him?

"Uh yeah… thanks for asking…" Sokka answered me, while scratching the back of his head. He sat down by me on the dead log that was supposed to be only mine. I guess I can share…

"Really, what are you making?" Sokka prods Katara, studying her stew.

"Vegetables, we have lion grass, little tree, and orange beets."

"Ick! Where's the meat? I'm a man, I need meat to grow!" Sokka flexed his twigs to further prove his point.

I rolled my eyes, and slid my arm over his shoulder, slowly.

"Well Sokka, a big," He gulped at my hand moving to his neck, "strong man, should be able to," I suddenly put him into a headlock, "Get out of a head lock from a girl!" I noogied him while tightening my hold on him.

"You! _ack! _Stop! Deanis!" He tapped my shoulder, letting me know that it's time to let go. I release my hold on him, while he scurries away, glaring at both Katara and I.

"I can see- _Cough cough- "_That I'm getting nowhere with you two… I'll go hunting for meat, like most men do" His voice squeaked at the end of his tirade, resulting in Katara's and my laughing. His face was red, all the way to his neck. He literally blew steam from his ears and stomped away from us. Katara and I laughed till' we cried, helping me keep my mind off that horrible dream.

**=*~`""`~*=**

**Yeah, so it's definitely not the greatest chapter. I really was stumped while doing this one, and thinking one night I basically said "Why do I need to do every episode?" I only did a little of this one because I already told you at the top. I'm losing my writing abilities, I've noticed that this whole fan fic is kinda bland, so I'm gonna start changing stuff up.**


	8. Chapter 8: The Library Part I

**Well everyone, I'm loving this chapter. I did it in two days! TWO DAYS! I enjoyed this chapter immensely! Last chapter I despised so I made it more of a filler of course. I went all Naruto on you guys. Sorry (I shrug sheepishly) If you guys are stills sticking to this story, thumbs up to you! I can't believe it took me this long. I don't really want to add any excuses either, but I do have some good ol' ones. **

**If you notice any spelling errors, any mistakes, anything you need to tell me, please respond. **

**Also I have a little info to tell you.**

**Instead of Sokka being fifteen years old, he is now sixteen. Instead of Zuko being sixteen, I have made him seventeen. And Deanis is eighteen. **

**I don't own anything that is Avatar, I only own a nice ol' D3300 Nikon Camera. :P**

**-KyDanson.**

**Words: 4,017**

**=*~`""`~*=**

Traveling with younger companions, has proven to be fun, but it also has its downsides. These kids, especially Aang, don't have a grasp on the big picture that they are having to dwell with. I mean, hearing about their adventures of riding giant sea monsters, sledding upon seal penguins, and much more that I was speechless too. But lately, I've been wondering how prepared Aang is to saving his world. He doesn't know anything about fire bending, is a beginner with Earth bending, and just mastered water bending. Whenever I bring up the topic of his fire bending, he shuts up and gets this annoyed and despaired look on his face. So I usually avoid it. I guess being the adult in the group is where I learn why my world is divided between ages. At the moment, I'm lying on Appa's cloud like tail, listening to Aang teach groundhogs to take orders from a flute. Lately, this has been what we've been up to. Traveling carelessly while Aang gets regularly beat by Toph in earth bending training. Right now, it's one of those rare moments where we're all just absorbing each other's laziness and seeing who's going to break that laziness. I love laying around, don't get me wrong, it's just at these times, are the times when I think about my home the most. I keep wondering what's going on there, if time moves the same, if my parents actually miss me, and how Lavea is doing. Lately, I've been hoping for some danger here, for something to distract me from my swirling thoughts.

Another thing I've been stewing in, is Zuko. I keep thinking about why I saw him of all people at the swamp. Why did I see a young, volatile spoiled child there of all places? I dragged my hand through Appa's soft fur, watching the white fur move in the small freshening breeze.

"This is great and all, but don't we have more important things to worry about?"

I raised my head to the voice that posed the elephant in the room.

Sokka stood facing Aang, with his fingers… stuffed into Aangs flute. Aang's cheeks comically looked like a chipmunks would be with a whole bunch of nuts stuffed in its mouth.

"We did make plans. We're all picking mini vacations." Toph added, while picking some dirt from his toes.

"There's no time for vacations." Sokka reminds Toph like an adult would remind their child why they can't have candy before dinner.

"I'm learning the elements as fast as I can. I practice hard every day with Katara and Toph. I've been training my arrow off."

I really wanted to add when he was going to start training in Fire bending, but I kept my mouth closed for once.

Katara walked up to Aang,

"Yeah, what's wrong with having a little fun in our down time?" She asks Sokka.

"Even if you do master all of the elements, then what? It's not like we have a map of the Fire Nation." He quickly Gestures to the side"Should we just head west until we reach the Fire Lord's house?" and he Knocks on an imaginary door_._ "Knock, knock. Hello, Fire Lord? Anybody home? I don't think so. We need some intelligence if we're going to win this war." The last bit of his rant, he got a much more somber tone.

"All right, we'll finish our vacations," Katara adds a mocking tone, "Than we'll look for Sokka's intelligence."

Aang laughs, while I get up from Appa and join the group.

"Sokka has a point, many wars aren't won just from _willy nilly _planning." I told Aang. Katara looks at me and rolls her eyes, not believing I actually agree with Sokka. Aang nodded his head to show that he heard me, but I knew he didn't really want to agree with me. He pulled out a map and laid it on the flat barren ground that was surrounded by valley.

"It's your turn to choose Katara. Where would you like to go for your mini-vacation?" He asks while she puts a finger to her chin. She points to a small place surrounded by desert,

"How about the Misty Palms Oasis? It looks refreshing."

"Oh yeah! I've been there. It's a pristine natural ice spring. And I usually don't use the word pristine. It's one of nature's wonders." Aang tells the rest of us with assurance.

**=*~`""`~*=**

"Well you were right that it's icy…" I observe, staring at the tiny, sad looking ice spring.

"It must've changed ownership since I was last here…" Aang laughs sheepishly.

We walk through the arch, with a sign hanging only on one chain, which could fall apart any second. I raise my eyebrows at some of the leering criminal looking men that were in these parts. I see where Aang is leading us too,

"Uh, are we gonna go in the bar that looks like it could be housing some notorious criminals?" I ask him with wide eyes.

"Oh grow a backbone Deanis, you can handle yourself fine." Toph tells me.

I glare at him, again having to reprimand myself that he is blind. Ahead of me, I see a guy wrapped up in tannish fabric, spit at the bottom of Sokka's feet. Sokka glares at the guy, who leers at him. The wrapped up guy has a couple of missing teeth, well I should say only has a couple of teeth left in his mouth. Katara pulls Sokka away from the leering guy, while I glare at the whole group of them. Some of them eye me with thought, while the rest look at me like I'm a tool. I shake my head in disgust, feeling little shivers crawl up to my neck. I had an ominous from these men, I had a bad feeling from them.

We enter the dark musty bar, the flap by the entrance making popping sounds in the wind. I sighed from the darkness that was relaxing compared the never ending harsh light that was in the desert area. We've been traveling quite a while now, all excited to be going somewhere beautiful, to only be going to a criminal habitant.

I notice the bartender showing off his skills with the sword, chopping up some fruity stuff for a drink.

"I don't see anything wrong with having one of those fruity beverages while we strategize." Sokka exclaimed while walking faster to the bartender.

I grab the back of his shirt, "Sokka, you're sixteen years old, you don't need alcohol. Especially on planning some war strategies."

Sokka rolled his eyes at me and shrugged out of my hold, "I've been drinking alcohol since I was young, it's not a bad thing." He laughs at my face and scurries to the counter. While he is doing that, Aang runs into someone who was ordering that mango drink. That mango drink, now all over Aang's garbs.

"Don't worry, I clean up easily!" Aang smiled and air bended his clothes dry.

The guy who spilt all over Aang gasped! "You're a living relic!"

Aang blushes and shrugs, "Thanks, I try."

"You have to let me buy you lunch! I can't believe I spilt all over such an ancient being." He grabs Aang's shoulders and leads him to the bar stool, making Aang sit down with a plump. I raise my eyebrows, and follow along the group, taking seats around the bar.

"I've met a real life air nomad! I'm professor Zei, head of anthropology, at Ba Sing Se University." He grabs Aang's arms and points at one of Aang's many arrows,

"Tell me, which Air temple do you hail from?"

"The Southern Temple."

Zei pulls out a measuring tape tool, I don't really know what it's called, but he started measuring Aang's head excitedly chattering,

"Oh! Splendid! Now tell me- what was the primary agricultural product of your people?"

Aang shrinks a little from Zei's excessive prodding.

"Uh, are fruit pies an agricultural product?"

"Oh truly fascinating!" He trades his measuring thingy for a small notepad. "That one is for the journal!"

"So professor, you seem like a well-traveled guy. Do you have a more current map? Ours seem a little outdated." Sokka pulls out our map, waiting for Zei to finish his writing. He looked up with a warm smile, "Certainly," and he pulls out his map. Sokka grabs the map and unrolls it on the bar counter, examining it with his two fingers tapping on his chin.

"What, no fire nation?" He straightens up while raising a hand in the air, "Doesn't anybody have a good map of that place?"

Katara peers at the map and observes, "You've made a lot of trips to the desert."

"All in vain, I'm afraid. I've found lost civilizations all over the Earth Kingdom," he raises his fist slightly, adding a dramatic flair_. _ "But I haven't managed to find the crown jewel: Wan Shi Tong's Library."

"You've spent years walking through the desert to find some guys library?" I look over, well down at Toph laying down by the bar, picking dirt between his toes.

'Well, I heard about some dude waging war against the sea. He sent many of his soldiers to drown at sea." I commented to him. Toph just narrowed his eyes and replied,

"I somehow don't believe you…" I shrugged my shoulders while Zei looked like he wanted to ask more.

"The library is much more valuable than gold, young boy. It is said to contain a vast amount of knowledge, and knowledge is priceless."

"Hmm, sounds like good times." Toph twirled his figure with his sarcastic tone.

"Oh, it is. According to legend, it was built by the great Knowledge Spirit, Wan Shi Tong, with the help of his _foxy_ knowledge seekers." Zei told Toph, not sensing Tophs sarcasm.

"Oh, this spirit has attractive assistants huh?" Sokka asks, showing his immature sixteen year old self. Katara rolled her eyes and thumped the side of Sokka's head.

"I think he'd means they look like actual Foxes Sokka."

"You're both right! Handsome little creatures. Wan Shi Tong and his knowledge seekers collected books from all over the world, and put them on display for mankind to read, so that we might better ourselves." Zei told a surprised Sokka and Katara. I was sitting by Toph, mainly because I wasn't really interested in what he had to say. I've spent countless hours in a library, or study getting taught by a Tutor. This specific tutor taught in the old ways, with a ruler and some red, swollen hands.

"If this place has books from all over the world, do you think they've got info on the Fire Nation? A map, maybe?" Sokka asks with a little bit of desperate hope in his voice.

I wouldn't know. But if such a thing exists, it's in Wan Shi Tong's Library."

"Or we could just find an old, blind Fire Nation scholar or something." I whisper to Toph. He smiled a little.

"Then it's settled. Aang, I do believe it's my turn. I'd like to spend my vacation-" picture Sokka pointing his hand in the air with a certain boisterous flair, "-at the library!"

Toph shot up, with anger in his face, "What about me! When do I get to pick?" He asks the group.

"Or me... I'm the oldest and am not fond of going into a desert for a Library that might not exist."

Sokka points between the two of us while telling us, "You both got to work here a little longer before you qualify for vacation time."

Toph crosses his arms and just blows out some tensed up air.

"Of course, there's the matter of finding it, like your little red friend said. I've made several trips into the Si Wong Desert and almost died each time. I'm afraid the desert's impossible to cross." Zei ended his sentence with slumped shoulders and dampened eyes.

Sokka smiled at Zei with a smirk, "Professor, would you like to see our sky bison?"

Zei perked up like a thirteen year old girl at a Justin Bieber concert, "A sky Bison? You actually have one?"

**=*~`""`~*=**

After leaving the Oasis, the scene we were introduced too was of some Sand benders corralling Appa for some reason. Zei made them scurry away, but one, an older one stopped and stared at me, scrutinizing me before sprinting off towards his friends and yelling at them, "It's the red head!" He jumped up with the rest of the sand benders, on this weird sail boat type thing, and bended the sand below them to sail away somehow. I couldn't help shaking that weird feeling I was getting from them. Why did he seemed to recognize me. We are now all sitting on top of Appa, Toph, Sokka, Katara and I were near the back of the saddle, while Zei was basically geeking out over Appa.

"Tell me sky bison, are you the last of your breed?" Appa gives a light growl in response, "Delightful! I only wish I spoke his tongue!" He scratches Appa's head. "The stories this beast could tell." Zei continues on until Momo crawls besides Zei and starts chitterling. "Shush, chatty monkey." Zei holds a figure up to Momo.

"This shouldn't be too hard to find this place!" Aang hold up the page that the giant library was on. I silently agreed with him, but the way that Zei was describing how hard it is to find, kept me from speaking.

"So kids, what are your stories? Where do you once hail from?" Asks Zei, looking at the rest of us.

Katara and Sokka peer at one another, Katara continuing,

"Sokka and I are from the Southern Water Tribe. We found Aang enclosed in a spherical block of ice, and now we have had many adventures together."

"A block of ice? That sounds amazing, so young and on so many adventures!" He looked at Toph, who was sitting next to me. I elbowed him in the ribs a little harder than I should have. He gave an "Oomph" and glared at me,

"Well, Prof. I'm Toph Beifong, ran away from home, teaching-" He nods his head in Aangs direction, "- Aang how to Earth Bend. Saving the world, you know." He shrugged his shoulders at the last bit like it was no big deal.

"Beifong! From the notorious Beifongs? To meet Southern tribes, the Avatar, and a Beifong in one day is glorious!"

I could see Toph's pride swell and I rolled my eyes at him. Zei looked at me, interest and anticipation in his eyes. I looked at Sokka and Katara, they shook their heads at me.

"I'm just a small village girl that can fire bend and made friends with Aang and the gang." I smiled a cheesy smile at Zei, seeing him wilt a little at how plain my story is.

"You must have something for all those wanted posters up." He told me.

"What wanted posters?" I ask him. He raises his eyebrows at me, and pulls out a parchment from his satchel and hands it to me. I grab it and raise my eyebrows at it. There's a girl, with black eyes, instead of dark brown; and flaming red hair. She actually looked pretty, with some freckles splashed across her nose, but that's not what surprised me. I couldn't read any of the top, considering it is in this worlds language (Don't ask how I can speak it, I just can.) "Well, Professor, what does it say?" I quiz him. He looked at me with aghast,

"It says _The Red Demon: Wanted for betraying The Fire Nation." _

I snort out in disbelief, "Oh she's mad at me for not joining her… betraying?" Zei lifts his eyebrow, "Azula and I got in a fight, and she liked how much potential I have in Fire Bending, but didn't like how I didn't want to join her and her Nations belief in eradicating the other Nations."

Zei looked at me, something akin to awe. "For someone to defy the princess, and the royal empire, is a whole other feat."

I nod at him, accomplishing his compliment. "Yet I can't read this lang… I just can't read." I tell him quickly, trying to cover up my slip-up.

"Oh someone has to teach you! I can't believe not one lord has spotted your rarity and tried to claim you as his own." Zei tells me with his eyes earnest.

"Hah! What are you talking about? Aint no lord having this." I point at myself and swivel my eyebrows lecherously. Zei didn't laugh but he smiled and leaned forward with his chin rested on his fist. "How old are you Miss Deanis? You seem much older than the rest of the company."

"Eighteen, I'm not much older than Sokka." I shrug my shoulders.

"And you've never had one request for marriage? You're young beauty and rarity should have been noticed!"

I nervously scratch the back of my neck and laugh, looking at Katara and Sokka for help.

"Well, I was basically told I'm flat chested…" I tell Zei honestly, "But, enough about me! Let's look for this so called dreaded library." I slap my hands together and turn around, abruptly ending the conversation. This conversation makes me think about all the guys who stare at me with wide eyes as I walk by. I may have red hair, which is new in this world, but I don't have any interest in any of these men. They all looked the same to me. Besides Sokka and…Zuko. Zuko kept coming up in my mind when topics like this arise. He has golden eyes, which I've never seen before. They, or the one shines like a summer Sunset. Than his scar intrigues me. Why did he get it, how did he get it? At first I was flabbergasted to see such a huge and dark scar like that, but now I'm interested. Prince Zuko needs to stop occupying my thoughts.

"Does this place even exist?" I look over to see Toph sitting with crossed arms and a frown warping his features.

"Some say it doesn't." Zei said with a foreboding tone.

"Shouldn't you have said that before?" Toph growls at Zei, while collapsing deeper into the saddle beside me.

"I really want to take a nap… I can't read, so I'm in the same boat as you in that department." I quietly tell Toph.

"But you're not blind, you're just dumb." Toph mumbles back at me. I narrow my eyes at the little twelve year old and pinch right below his armpit. He gives a little "Eep."

I smile a little smile and turn around to face the never ending sand dunes. They roll in waves, sending shadows to make the dips seem deeper and darker. I sigh while burying my chin in my crossed arms and mumble out, "This is gonna be awhile."

**=*~`""`~*=**

I feel Toph beside me move to the other side of the saddle and yell out in excitement, "There it is!" We all look over to where Toph is pointing to only see more sand dunes. We glare at him in annoyance while he smirks, "That's what it will sound like when one of you spots it." He waves his hand in front of his face with a "dur" feature. I roll my eyes and slap his arm. I quickly return to where I was and stare out at the dunes some more, mesmerized by their rolling.

"It shouldn't be this hard to spot a giant, ornate building from the air!" Katara hisses out with annoyance.

We don't answer her until I hear Sokka ask, "Down there, what's that?" I look over at Sokka and see him pointing out to some dunes with his telescope covering his eyes.

Aang steers Appa to a lone tower, which is not what the picture of the library looked like. It looked to be a small lookout tower that once was in use.

"Forget it. It's obviously not what we're looking for. The building in this drawing is enormous." Katara pouts while staring at the picture of the library.

"What's that?" Sokka asks while we all see a small fox walks over to the dune that the library resided on. The fox had a small scroll in its mouth. The fox does something I could never imagine doing, it ran up the side of the tower, defying gravity, and entered through a small window at the top of the tower.

"I think that was one of the Knowledge Seekers. Oh, we must be close to the library!" Zei gleefully hopes for. Sokka leans over my shoulder to stare at the illustration Katara was currently holding. "No, this is the library- look!" He points at the top of the illustration, where the tallest tower was. "It's completely buried!"

"The library is buried!" Zei shouts with some good ol' dramatics.

Aang steers Appa down to the sand by the Tower. We all unload from Appa and surround the base of the tall tower.

"My life's ambition is now full of sand." He collapses in the sand, and pulls out a small shovel from his Mary Poppins satchel. "Well, time to start excavating!" he starts shoveling with a ferocity that only a nerd anthropologist could handle. Toph walked up to the stone tower and places his hand on it.

"Actually, that won't be necessary. The inside seems to be completely intact. And it's huge." Toph whistles out the rest of his sentence.

"That foxy thing went through the window. I say we climb up there and give it a look." Sokka plans out.

"I say you guys go ahead without me." Toph tells the group.

"And me." I add with him.

"You got something against libraries?" Katara asks the both of us.

Toph rolled his eyes and told her, "I've held books before. And I gotta tell you, they don't exactly do it for me."

Katara sheepishly tells him, "Oh, right. Sorry. But Deanis why are you not going in?"

"Well, considering I can't read, I don't see much of a point of going underground to read things I can't read." I tell her with a roll of the eyes.

"Let me know if they have something to listen too." Toph tells the group.

Aang comes up to me and whispers to me out of earshot of Toph and Zei. "I'll look for something about your… predicament. And some fire bending scrolls, trust me." He smiles at me and gives me a quick hug. The action surprised me, but I quickly hugged him back.

Toph and I stand by one another, watching Sokka, Katara, Zei and Aang climb up the rope that lead to the secret never-ending Library. We watched them pop in one by one. Before Aang disappeared into the dark window he yelled at me, "Are you sure you don't want to come?"

"I'm sure Aang! Just keep your promise!" I yell back at him with a hand concealing my eyes from the sun. He nods and looks over at the sand dunes one more time and yells at Appa, "Don't worry buddy! I'm not making you go underground ever again. You can stay out here with Toph and Deanis!" than he disappears into the abyss that was the library.

"Then there was two." I sing out, looking at Toph.

Appa growled out loud, "Oh sorry, I mean three." I quickly correct myself. Toph and I stood in silence and he said out loud, "This is fun…"

"Uh Huh… I guess all we got to do now is wait." I tell him, staring at the tall tower once again. I couldn't shake that feeling that something bad was going to happen. It was deep in my bones, and I hopped Aang and the group would be okay. What I didn't realize that my worry should be based more upon myself and not so much on the rest of the group.

**=*~`""`~*=**

**So, what did you think of it? Love it, hate it? So I have something planned for the future chapter that made me totally change the course of my story. It has to do with some foreshadowing I put into this chapter. Mwahahha. Place your guesses in the review button type doo-dad. **


	9. Chapter 9: The Library Part II

**Hello my readers. I am sorry for the late update, but life is very much taking ahold of me. Been busy with the college life and such, but I haven't forgot about dear Miss Deanis and her band of misfits!**

**I think you'll enjoy this chapter, it's short, but got some inner thoughts of Deanis again and some other stuffs. :3**

**Glad to see you's be reviewing me story still! Thanks too,**

**Lexi,**

**MusicLover315: Im excited that you're excited about the lovely sandbenders!**

**Doom-Kitteh: Thanks for the feedback, I always need it and what do you mean by size? Too large, too small? And I am always glad to be far from the worst, this story is just a little muse on the back of my head.**

**Rozanne Armstrong: Right Meow!**

**HeatherStylinson: And thanks, I love the praise! Give me more;D**

**Next Chapter should be a little bit quicker, since I've broke through this writer block like the Kool-Aid man breaks through a wall, "Oh yeah!"**

**-Kydanson**

**I do not own Avatar, only um, Deanis.**

**Word count: 2,769**

**Chapter 9: The Library Part II**

**=*~`""`~*=**

Crawling inside a fridge would be pretty convenient at the moment. Not just any fridge, the ones where you put huge chunks of cow meat in them. The ones where you see in movies, where if the door shuts, you die from freezing to death. That's what I want in my life right now. Laying in Appa's shadow, with Toph besides me, in this grueling desert, I come to realize, maybe I should've just stayed in that scummy bar. This world doesn't seem to have a drinking age, I could just enjoy a nice cold beer, or whatever they offer in this world that is equivalent to a nice cold beer.

Maybe I shouldn't have fallen in the pool in the first place, is what I am really thinking. Maybe I wouldn't be actually fearing for my life most the time, or being shot at by lightning of all things. I sigh loudly, blowing a wisp of my hair out of my face. My laziness and exhaustion were at an all-time peak, I wasn't moving my arms to get a small piece of hair out of my face.

"If you keep sighing, I am going to punch you square in the face."

I look over at a drenched Toph. His arms were crossed, and his face was beaded in sweat.

"I honestly don't understand how you can muster any energy for there to be any force in that punch." I told him.

"It'll still hurt…" He pouted a little then grumbled out loud, "I thought you said we were in the shade of the library." I looked around us and sure enough, we were in the shade of the towering library.

"We are…" I slowly told him.

"It doesn't feel like it!" Toph shouted out. His cheeks instantly reddened from the exertion of his voice. "I hate this heat… and I hate being so bored…" He said with his bottom lip sticking out. I instantly thought "_this kid is gonna be a ladies man for sure with that little pout he has…" _

"We could play 20 questions…" I said with flare.

"Sounds boring," He stared ahead, and then bit his bottom lip, "how do you play? Not because I am interested or anything."

I smiled at his childlike behavior. "Well, I am thinking of something, anything really, and you have to ask me twenty questions to see what I am thinking of. I can only answer 'yes' or 'no' to each question."

"What's the point of this game?"

"To past time, I don't know, I've never questioned the reasoning to this game." I told him with a hint of annoyance.

"Fine, fine. Let's play." He waved his hand at me to calm qualm my temper.

I smiled "Okay, start asking me questions."

"What is it?" He asks me.

"That's not how we play… you can ask me things like if it's human, animal, furry, male, female, there's so much to narrow down to what I asked."

"Fine, is it human?" He asks with a puff.

"Yes."

"Is it male?"

"Yes."

"...uh...hairy?" He asks scratching his head.

"No."

"So no hair… is it Aang?"

"...yes…"

"That's easy. So what now?"

"I was going easy on you. I have to guess what you're thinking now."

"Mine is gonna be a lot harder, and you were not going easy."

"Yes I was!" I tell Toph with a flick to the forehead.

"Hay!" He grabs his forehead. He kicks my leg, and I hiss out. This kid had some strength behind his small frame.

"Goddamit, Toph! My leg is gonna bruise now!" I tell him while inspecting my shin.

"Well you started it!"

"I didn't kick you!" I exclaim.

"If you kicked me I wouldn't be whining!" He growls at me while crossing his arms.

"I am not whining." I grumble at him. We sit in silence for a little bit. I hear a giggle and look over at him, laughing.

"Uh, you wanna share?"

"I am just laughing because I was remembering last week you were crying because you fell over Aang's glider onto Katara's stew."

I thought back to that very moment, and slouched a little. That was not a great week for me, considering Sokka was acting weird with me still, and I was on my good Ol' period. I remember tripping up on Aangs hidden glider and fell onto the stew that Katara just brewed, so it was hot. It soaked my new clothes I...stole but told Aang I bought with some money I somehow saved up. I also was willowing in the prospect of never getting home, never seeing my people I care about, and how I'm not gonna master firebending, it was just a depressing moment. I was sobbing after I fell over the stew, and kept saying sorry to Katara, who was mad at first, than surprised at my reaction. She was patting my back and led me to the outskirts of camp to talk about my thoughts. Although Katara and I don't see eye-to-eye, she sure is a great listener and mother hen. When I told her about what time of the month it was, she completely understood, and gave me some herbs to basically clear out my system. She told me that these herbs basically stop yourself from flowing, and it's pretty much birth control. I guess if you are gonna be around males without any adult supervision, might be a good thought in mind to have some type of birth control. Even if she's so young, and seems like above my age, she still needs it. I see how a lot of the men here look at her. I recognize her exotic beauty, and how her curves are coming in. She's definitely is going to be a beautiful woman, a woman that is awfully kind. I've noticed guys looking at me, but more in astonishment and curiosity with my red hair, that has no sign of going away. I'm annoyed that I always have to hide it now, because I'm fairly recognizable in all my wanted posters. Now guys look at me… and just glance over me. I've known I am not much, but in my world, I still managed to wrangle one guy in my life. We don't talk anymore, well before I left we didn't talk, but he did take my virginity… and then left me high and dry afterwards. And he was a candidate for being one of my eligible bachelors. He was the son of an important CEO, and was heir to the business, and my parents wanted to have their clutches in on that. That guy who used me… was someone I connected to, I thought at least. He would joke with me on some very dark subjects, and he understood me on a deeper level. This happened when I was fifteen years old, and I never really connected with people my own age again, until I came here to this world. The longer I spend here, the more the charade of wanting to go home is just a lie. I still will not let my heart fall for another for the time being, but I will let myself have friends. It's a great feeling of not being alone again. My mind is on helping them with their goal, and becoming great with firebending. I've been practicing it, but I've been basing the stances with Katara's waterbending moves, which Aang told me is not the way to firebend at all. He won't go into any more details of teaching me the firebending ways, but I am trying it as best I can. All I can really do is call up explosions and then I can't do anymore because I am too drained from the sheer power that they exemplify.

"Hey, do you hear something?"

"Hear what?" I ask him, shaking my head of my thoughts.

"Your thinking is loud as a stampede of Elephant Tigers."

"Elephant tigers?" I ponder out loud, wrapping my head on what they look like. "Was my thoughts that loud?" I change the subject with a shake of my head.

"Well, I've noticed this thing about you, when you're quiet for a long time, you're usually thinking hard."

"I don't know if you're insulting me…." I narrow my eyes at him.

"You asking that question is insulting enough." He flicked his finger to get rid of some sweat in his eyes.

"I don't have the energy to have a quick come-back to you." Laying myself down, where instead of my back being against the library, I was laying in the sand. Staring at the cloudless sky above me.

"You don't have the brain-"

Before he could finish his sentence, I asked him,

"So there's spirits in this world?"

He didn't say anything, gathering his thoughts and possibly wondering why I asked that of all questions.

"Yes. There is a spirit world that only the Avatar can access."

"So what about God?" I wasn't a firm believer in the religious aspects from my world, but this world is a lot different from mine.

"god? What do you mean by a god?" He asks me, slowly mulling over the word.

"A supremely perfect being that created ones world." I told him, trying to explain the best I could, considering I don't really know much about religion.

"Um… like Aang? I'm not sure to what created this world… I know that there is many spirits. There's a spirit world, with powerful spirits but I am not so sure about god."

"Why is it only the Avatar that can access this spirit world? Everyone believes in it… sounds like it may be real...but why just the Avatar when everyone has faith in these spirits?"

"Um...well...the Avatar is strong...I don't know! You're asking the wrong person! Ask Aang if you're so curious!" Toph rubbed his forehead from my weird questions and obviously never really thought about these questions.

We sat in silence for a tick before my ability to be quiet was used and I asked the question that would annoy him more,

"So, got any girls back home?"

He stopped rubbing his forehead, with his fingers still placed there, he shook his head.

"I'm twelve, never was allowed to leave my home, of course I don't have a girlfriend." He rolled his eyes and looked at me,

"What about you?" I smiled and laughed,

"I don't have any girls either."

"That's not what I meant…" I laughed at his obvious annoyance to my smart ass snipe.

"No, I don't have any men waiting back home for me."

"Aren't you like old though?" He itched his chin while narrowing his eyes.

"Considering eighteen isn't old, but no I still don't have a man because I'm old."

"My parents were talking about a marriage for me and I am twelve. Maybe you're just ugly." He smirked a little smirk, and I grabbed his cheeks and pulled and threatened,

"So you think I'm ugly aye? Maybe I should just keep stretching your cheeks until you look like an old man!"

"Deanis! Stop! Argh…. You're stretching my cheeks!" He was fighting me back, or trying too. You are probably wondering, "_Deanis, why are you teasing a twelve-year-old blind kid? Especially since he can barely see through his feet in the sand?" _Well everyone, I'm an asshole, and this kid has it coming for being a disrespectful little shit.

"Stop! I hear something! Deanis!"

"Like I'll fall for that-" He shoved me off of him and stood up, facing towards Appa.

"Hay ma-" he held a finger up to me to be quiet.

I stood up, realizing this isn't a joke. He actually was hearing something, maybe Appa's fart, you never know.

I dusted the sand off my thighs and Peered over Appa, who was also facing the direction that Toph believes he heard the sound. I saw a dust cloud, maybe a couple miles out. I rubbed my eyes, and looked again, thinking maybe it's a mirage.

"Uh, Toph, there's a huge dust cloud hanging this way."

"So there is something… They're coming in fast…" He told me, almost like he was thinking out loud.

I squinted my eyes to see the fast growing figures that were making their way to us.

"They… look like boats?" I pondered to Toph.

Suddenly, behind both of us, we hear a huge rumbling sound.

I turn quickly and see the library slowly sinking into the thick sands. "Toph! The Library!"

He quickly runs to the library and sticks his hands into the stone, using his earthbending to try and slow it down.

"Ugggghhhh! It's, going too fast!" He screamed. I look up at the small window hoping to see Aang fly right out of there, and save the day.

"GrAAAAAA!"

I turn to the sound of Appa's groan to see three sand benders tying ropes around Appa. There was more sandbenders atop their sand gliders, waiting for Appa to be sedated in his ropes. I widen my eyes, my heart quickly beating faster at the approaching threat of losing Appa and the Library sinking, with all of our friends going down with it. My hands shook, it was just me to defend Appa, and whatever else these sandbenders planned on doing. I had to take charge, and not run for once, even with my weakening firebending.

"Let him go!" I yelled at the sandbenders while running, my hands fisted with heat quickly streaming from my stomach to be jetted out into the air.

I shot fire at them, although it was a small ball of fire no-less, but it distracted the sand benders. Distracted them to look at me, and surprise me from one of them saying,

"There she is!"

"Get her!"

I felt more sweat drip down my forehead, my throat swallowed with worry. Toph and I were vastly outnumbered by all these sandbenders, and I was weak. I could hear Toph grunting form the exertion of trying to keep the Library above the sand.

Sandbenders from the gliders approached me, while the rest continued on trying to kidnap Appa.

"Okay, girl, we're gonna get a nice amount from your sweet bounty." One said with a sneer.

I held up my arms in a defense stance and narrowed my eyes with a small smile, "You're gonna have to fight me."

They both smiled and one even laughed at me, more of a "guffah" type laugh. They bended the sand beneath my feet, causing me to lose my balance and fall to my knees. I squeaked, and could hear Toph yell my name from behind me. I bended a smaller-than-the-first-ball-of-fire at them from my position from the ground. I was desperate, the sun zapped me of my energy, and my mind was not focusing on trying to conjure the fire I needed to save myself.

They easily dodged the meek little fire ball, and quickly tightened the sand around my wrists and ankles, making any escape futile.

"What's wrong girlie? I thought there was a fight somewhere." One asked me, pulling out a long smooth staff from his belt. I looked over at Toph, still trying to save the rest of the group. I looked over at Appa, who was covered in ropes, and being dragged by the sandbenders. I slowly turned my head back at the sand bender standing above me, I gulped, with the staff swung back, he quickly slammed it to the back of my head.

**=*~`""`~*=**

**Alright, guys. What did you think? Be honest, I am not too sensitive to critical feedback. All reviews are swell. **

**Was it at least a surprise that they took Deanis?**

**See you next time, when Deanis wakes up cooking over a fire! Just kidding, I wouldn't tell you guys details to the new, upcoming chapter. That's just plain spoilment, **


	10. Chapter 10: The Desert

**So I received reviews pretty quickly on my last update, and I was so happy with them. They were critical feedback, and actually helped me think about my story a bit harder. I thank all of you guys, and I changed the way I usually write my authors note, my responses to your reviews are at the end of the chapter! I enjoyed writing this a lot! I am excited to finally go off the transcript, it's a lot easier to write creatively to me.**

**Also there's a surprise appearance in this one;D**

**-Kydanson**

**I don't own Avatar, I think I've said this ten times?**

**Words: 4,717**

**Chapter 10: The Desert**

**=*~`""`~*=**

"_Ding dong the witch is dead, the wicked witch is dead!"_

_Aang, Toph, Sokka and Katara were all clasping hands, and dancing around in a circle, singing off key to the Wizard of Oz. Confusing me, considering this song was from my world, and has no relevance to theirs. They continued singing that same verse of the song, over and over, spinning in their hypnotic circle. They never fumbled their steps once, always the same moves, exact same faces, a frozen wide smile across them. I could feel myself freeze watching them, my feet glued to the ground. _

"_Guys?" I whispered, barely able to utter anything louder. I felt like my mouth was trying to produce cotton when uttering that sound._

_They're spinning slowly stopped, their singing long gone, but their frozen wide smiles still were applied to their faces. When the dancing stopped, and no sound was heard anywhere around us, their heads slowly turned my way, almost creaking to my direction. I couldn't move, but I could feel my whole body freeze in terror. I wasn't sure why I was so scared, these were my friends, but their almost plastic expressions made the hairs on the back of my neck rise._

"_Yesssss?" Aang asked me without his lips moving._

"_Deanis?" Katara asked with the same exact expression._

_Toph and Sokka didn't say anything, but just stared with the dead eyes and wide smiles. _

"_What's happening guys?" As I asked them this, the scene suddenly changed, you know like in the movies Star Wars, when the ships go through hyperspace? Instead of hyperspace, I was moving between times in my life._

_I could see when I first learned how to walk, Lavea stood a couple steps away from my slow, clumsy waddling form. I didn't realize how young she was when she was raising me. She looked like a teenager, and I could see that she loved me from the beginning. I still was moving fast through my life, another scene was when I was younger and still didn't understand why my parents weren't around. All the tv I watched, kids my age would eat dinner with their parents, not at a huge table in the dining room, by themselves and sometimes their imaginary friends. Aging, I was learning fighting, and the only time when my parents would check up on me was to check up on my studies. I saw my first kiss with the guy who broke my heart, I saw many moments in my life, important ones, ones that were sad, and ones that could be me just watching tv. Then I saw myself falling into the pool, and the moments from them playing to the dessert. I felt myself falling in my memories, a silent scream coming out of my mouth. I heard voices around me, saw faces I've never seen before, and yet I couldn't slow this vortex down. Things were starting to slow down, my screaming was stopping when I felt the fear trickle out of me. I fell slowly onto a water surface, small ripples of water coming from my body. My body that was laying peacefully on top the teal water. I stared at the blue sky, with huge white clouds above me. I smiled. This was peace, hearing birds flying, and waves crashing. I didn't even think about how there was no waves and what happened before I arrived here, but just thought about the extremely glassy water. _

"_What are you doing?" came a smoky voice._

_I smiled and without looking at the mystery person, I responded,_

"_I'm staring at the sky of course."_

"_Why?" I felt the surface of the water shift, almost as if the other person laid down on top the water, joining me._

"_Have you ever felt caged? Told you're free to do whatever you please, but you know you have to do the things that please the people that care about you?" I asked, staring at a seagull squeal, while flying through the sky above me._

"_What does that have to do with clouds and skies?" I heard frustration in the voice._

"_Staring at the sky makes me imagine myself as a bird flying through the clouds. Their only problems being survival. They can fly and fly and fly, and can see the whole world in another perspective. We're so small to them down here, our problems are nonexistent" I reached my hand towards the flying bird, feeling the peaceful breeze go through my extended fingers._

"_You want to become a bird?" _

"_I want to make my own decisions. I want to be free without the responsibilities that is expected upon me." I closed my eyes and took a deep clean breath of the ocean air._

"_I want peace." _

"_I want my honor." _

_I turn my head, to look at him._

"_From who?"_

"_My nation. My family...My father." _

_He stared at the sky, his unmarked side of the face handsomely screwed in concentration. _

"_And what has your nation done for you? What has your father done for you?" I asked him._

_His eyebrows narrowed together and his mouth formed in a tight line. _

"_I...I am...I am Prince of the Fire Nation. I have duties. I need, I must capture the avatar...I need my father to...want me again."_

_I felt myself turn back to the sky. My parents used me as their personal doll. They molded me to what they wanted me to be. Although, I still have my thinking, and my defiance to them._

"_You haven't answered me Zuko."_

_He turned to me, his scarred side now unmasked. He asked me with a serious question,_

"_What is your purpose in this world Deanis?"_

**=*~`""`~*=**

I heard voices, not too far off from where I was lying. I slowly opened my heavy eyes, and light shined on them. I squeezed them shut and groaned out, trying to cover them. I couldn't move my arms, upon wiggling them around, I came to the conclusion they were tied together.

"Ah, look who's finally awake."

I turned my face (which one side was smashed into the earthy ground) and saw four men sitting around a fire staring at me. They weren't sand benders either, and I wasn't anywhere near a desert either.

"Where am I?" I whispered hoarsely, being knocked out for a while having its effects on me.

"Poor girl thinks we're gonna tell her." One of the rougher looking men said.

"You don't need to know." said the older looking one, the obvious leader of the bunch.

I sighed and bit my lip from retorting back at the men. I stared at the darkening sky, I could see orange clouds in the distant behind the cactuses. I was noticing that the terrain was rocky, and that this whole scene was just like an old western movie.

"For having a huge bounty, she doesn't do much…" Mumbled the youngest looking one. They all looked at me, which I was in a very awkward position and, definitely not looking intimidating.

"There's a reason… Frial just entrusted us to get the full bounty." The seasoned abductee said. I didn't recognize any of these men as sand benders...so there must've been a trade… which means I've possibly been knocked-out for quite a time. Those thoughts reminded me of the not-so-dull pain on the back of my head. My last thought, was where was Appa… where was the group?

"Where's Appa?" I shouted at them. The younger one jumped, surprised at my outbursts.

"Look at her, feisty one aren't she? Maybe I should teach her to-"

"Shut up Hidan. We are not to touch the cargo. We are to deliver her to The Yoa trading post unharmed for full price." The oldest said to the rougher man that is obviously Hidan. I breathed out in relief that I am not to be in harmed, but I am still not going to push my luck with these men. The leader was smart… and seasoned, I could see it in his eyes. I let my head cool, and asked in my most trained dirt-under-the-nose-voice,

"Please… I know you men don't have to tell me anything… but I need to know. Anyways how would this information help me escape? I'm super weak…" I grumbled out the last part… internalizing kicking myself for getting captured. My whole act to them wasn't really an act, I'm afraid. I'm not with the good guys anymore… I'm in a foreign environment where kidnapping goes unnoticed. The only thing that these men don't know about me was that I can fight without fire bending.

"Like hell we'll-" Hidan didn't finish, the leader held a hand up to him and looked at me with narrowed eyes and said.

"You may have a point about this information not going to help you, but you are a slave, you have no rights with us. We don't need to tell you anything. Now be a good piece of cargo and not talk little girl."

I gulped and couldn't help getting tears in my eyes. I quickly closed my eyes hard and hide my tears away. I needed to be strong, I couldn't show these men weakness. I turned my head away from them and thought of Aang… the whole gang. They didn't have Appa… but did they even make it out of the library? What if they were stuck down there? Who was going to save the world now? My panicking thoughts were racing through my head. I felt like a cold sweat was starting to make its way through my body. If Aang made it out of the library, he was stuck in a huge dessert without Appa. Without Appa they were stuck without food, water, and an aerial view to escape the grueling desert. I knew I was nowhere near them, nowhere near Appa if they traded him a while ago. They must have traded Appa and me at the same time, but with different people? My mind was racing, where could I be? Who was going to help me? I was freaking out, I could almost feel myself hyperventilating. Oh God… If Azula got me, what would she do? My palms were sweating so much, my neck was too, my whole body was, and I could feel myself breathing harder. Borderline hyperventilating. I squeezed my eyes shut, and could feel them tearing up in my growing panic attack.

What would Aang do? Probably become moody with Appa being gone…

What would Katara do? Baby Aang most likely.

What would Toph do? Well, probably act super tough and egg these people on.

What would Sokka do? Calm himself out and think about all the things that could help me in this situation.

My whole panic episode was gone with more helpful thoughts stirring in my brain. I could feel them going at miles an hour. I could heat these ropes up… which these men should know I am a fire bender… so why use rope on a fire bender? There is no possible way that the sand benders failed to tell these traders about my bending. It could never hurt to try and see if I could burn a little bit of the rope without these men noticing. There was no way that I would be able to escape four, probably earth bending men, with a head injury. It was dulling my movements, and I don't know how long I've been out. How hard they hit me, how long I've been out, will determine how bad my concussion is. I'm not seeing double, and not feeling nauseated, so maybe I'm not concussed? But that doesn't explain why I was out for so long. But maybe it's only been a day? Maybe these guys move fast? I knew that the sun set in the west… so I knew that the way I am facing is east… where the dessert was at. But how far away it was, was the real question. I shook my head and went back to my first thought. Try and weaken these ropes and see where my fire bending abilities stand. I focused on the heat in my stomach, which surprisingly, was there. I imagined it had a personality of being moody...some days it didn't want to be used, and some days it gladly loves me and wanted to be used. I focused on the heat traveling through my body… although I didn't want it to be noticed so I made this process extra slow.

"You've been quiet girl, don't think you can escape." My focus disappeared, but I stayed silent, I quickly thought of a way for them to leave me alone. I sniffled, and shook my shoulder for added effect.

"Little girl is crying, oh wah." Said the biggest one.

"Shut up Hidan, we are not going to talk to the cargo, we are not to acknowledge her." Growled the leader from behind my back. So they think I am crying. I smiled, and tried to reach the heat in my stomach, but a quick pain from the back of my skull let me know that I needed to let it rests. This focus was stressing it, which concluded my thoughts on the concussion. I sighed out and knew that this was going to be a long trip.

**=*~`""`~*=**

(Zuko's point of view)

I couldn't believe Uncle brought us to a tavern. This was a disgraceful place for a prince to be, surrounded by the lowest scums of the Earth Nation. Although, we couldn't have avoided this place if we could've helped it. The Rough Rhinos didn't help either, having to escape their attack and deterring us off course from Ba Sing Se. I shook my head in disgust at those men attacking us, they were extremely weak and stupid to think they could kidnap The Prince of the Fire Nation and the Dragon of the West. Currently, I wanted to shake my uncle that whatever he was looking for was not here. I gave a once over of this tavern, and no one made me raise my eyebrows or called out to me. Until I spotted a poster on the wall, with a recognizable red head wanted poster nailed on it.

"Uncle." I elbowed him. He looked at me with confusion until he saw my line of sight.

"That is the new young lady that is with the avatar?" He said with recognition.

"Her atrocious hair is going to make her nearly impossible to not be recognized." I sneered out. "What a stupid girl."

Uncle didn't comment on the stupid part, "Azula really must be annoyed by this girl…" By the red head wanted poster was a picture of uncle and me… My scar screaming out from the rough drawing of me. I glared at the picture and turned around from others seeing me, putting the hood over my head, covering the scar.

"You also are easily recognizable, nephew." My uncle commented. I didn't comment but internally glared at the scar on the side of my face. So the little red head and I had something in common...well two things in common, maybe three. My shoulders sank a little at the thought of having anything in common with some random stupid girl whose fire bending style was atrocious. And her hair could be easily hidden, my scar was basically my whole face. I remember when I first encountered the redhead, she surprised me no less. Her hair being a beacon that could be seen a mile away, but she also had extremely brown eyes and freckles that dotted her skin. I could've attacked her earlier, but I was surprised by this exotic girl. I'd never seen anything like her, and I've traveled a lot. I remember having to physically shake my head and then attacked her. I thought she'd be a weak little girl, from the way she fire bended, but her fighting style was something not to be trifled with. I didn't really think much of her that day, especially when uncle got hurt, but a few days afterwards, I had a dream about her. It was strange to say the least_. _

_We were in meadow, a meadow that stretched for miles, maybe forever, because I couldn't see anything besides straw flowing slowly in the calm breeze. The only thing I could see was this bright head of red hair, and I immediately knew who it was._

_She was facing away from me, her arms stretched out over the straw and her hands running through it. It was such a peaceful sight, I could feel myself walking towards her with the lightest feeling in my heart that I haven't since felt when my mother was alive._

_When I was three feet away from her, she turned around and smiled at me. The biggest and most calming smile I've ever seen. I remember smiling a full smile at her, which I haven't done since I was younger, but it didn't feel foreign on my face, it felt like it fitted with this moment._

"_What are you doing?" I asked her, standing by her side._

"_Running my hands through the straw." She told me without missing a beat, like it was the most normal thing in the world._

"_But why?" I asked her with confusion. I never show confusion if I could help it. _

"_Why not?" She laughed at my question with this song like laugh, which swelled my heart. _

"_What is the point to this? How will this help you in any way?" I asked her without any frustration that I would normally have._

"_Well, I have freedom to run my hands in this straw, so I am going to do it. I mean, when do you have free time to just let yourself go? To let yourself remember the times of feeling the nature around you." She looked at me seriously, and at that moment she was beautiful. I've never seen a girl like her, and she obviously wasn't like normal ones. "But we don't have freedom." I told her, her eyes went downcast and she told me sadly._

"_Zuko, sometimes people can break free through the bonds that society ties around them. And I am doing that, maybe you should try and do what you really want instead of what others want." I felt a pang of regret from asking that question from the way she said that so sadly, and the way she was somehow disappointed at me. _

"_Deanis, I don't have that luxury, I am the Fire Nation Prince." I told her, wanting to grab her shoulder, but held myself back._

"_Why? Your nation banished you, you don't owe anything to them." I felt unfamiliar anger well up towards her, and I felt my normal self-unleash at her,_

"_A simple peasant wouldn't understand royal business."_

_She physically welted from my words, growing shorter than her normal height. "A simple peasant shouldn't be saying these things to me, a peasant who is working against the fire nations." I felt my hands be enveloped in my element, but inside I wasn't welcoming my much loved fire bending. Internally, I was screaming at myself from hurtling this innocent-like girl. Her eyes widened, but she still had that disappointed look in them, which only angered this evil Zuko more. _

"_You dare look at me like that!" He growled at her while bringing his hands together and shooting fire at her. I screamed inside, begging this Zuko not to hurt her. As the fire was about to hurt her, I shook with laughter._

I remember waking up at that moment, with sweat in my eyes. I was not angery at the dream, but so confused. In the beginning, it was so good, so painfully great, a moment I haven't felt in so long. I wasn't sure how I knew the strange girls name to be Deanis, and why she of all people was in my dreams. I scratched my head and wondered why I thought she was so beautiful, I had more important things to worry about than a stupid girl. I sneered just when my uncle said,

"I found our friend."

I turned around and saw who he was pointing at, and saw a normal looking old man sitting at a Pai Sho table. I looked dubiously at my uncle and asked him,

"You brought us here to gamble on Pai Sho?"

"I don't think this is a gamble." He said in his usual knowing voice. I shake my head but get up from our table and follow Uncle to the Pai Sho table. We stop by the Pai Sho table and Uncle, who is Fire Nation royalty asks the old man,

"May I have this game?"

The old man gestured for uncle to sit down and said in a calm voice,

"The guest has the first move." Upon the old man saying that, Uncle placed the White Lotus tile in the center of the Pai Sho board.

"I see you favor the White Lotus gambit. Not many cling to the ancient ways." The old man says mystically while cupping his hands towards Uncle. I cross my arms at this word play the old men were saying over their little game of Pai Sho.

"Those who do can always find a friend." Uncle responded to the old man. He cups his hands also, showing respect or whatever thing they're doing in this game.

"Then let us play." said the old man.

As the game intensifies, I sit down and watch their moves intently, trying to understand what exactly they were doing. Suddenly I heard a man laugh, breaking my concentration,

"This wench had this little fire ball bended at me, and thought she could hurt me!" The other men laughed, I turned around and saw that they were sand benders.

"Oh I remember, she didn't put much of a fight, I thought with that red hair, she'd be feistier than what she was!" Another laughed out, spitting his drink out while doing that. My eyes widened, they were talking about Deanis. I internally groaned at saying her name.

"I barely had to hit her! She was out like a fisherman hits a Batfish!" I could feel myself strangely growing worried.

"Oh man, I bet she wouldn't have felt if we played with her, sweet sexy thing she was. But Fucking Brad'ft made it damn sure we didn't touch the merchandise." Said a man with missing teeth.

I wanted to get up and punch these men, talking about this girl I dreamed about. My eyes widened at my thoughts, I didn't know this girl and I felt like I needed to protect her. The fuck is wrong with me?

"Yeah we couldn't do much when we traded her to Mica and his group. But by the Spirits, her breasts were such a great site."

I got up quickly, without realizing that fists were clenched, and that Uncle was looking at me strangely, only getting the last bit of the conversation between the sand benders.

"Nephew, we are done."

I shook my head of my anger and was about to tell him that it took them long enough, I heard someone shout,

"I'm not waiting all night for these geezers to finish yapping!" I locate the man who yelled that and saw him heading towards Uncle and me. He had hard eyes, and was a big earth bender. I closed my hands into fists, ready to fight this new threat. When he stood by the Pai Sho table and sneered at us,

"It's over! You two fugitives are coming with me!" So he did recognize Uncle and my faces in the wanted faces. Any idiot could with my blazing scar I thought bitterly. Surprisingly the old man that Uncle was playing against sprung up between the Earth bender and Uncle and I, and he said pointing at us,

"I knew it! You two are wanted criminals with a giant bounty on your heads!" I turned to Uncle and hissed out, "I thought you said he would help!"

Uncle sat calmly in his spot and said without missing a single moment,

"He is. Just watch."

I narrowed my eyes, but listened to what my uncle had to say. The old man turns to the two men that approached us, "You think you're going to capture them and collect all that gold?"

"Gold?" I turned to the sound of the voice, and noticed a man further in the tavern staring at the commotion. My eyes widened at what the old man was scheming.

The man that came along with the angry earth bender said, "Maybe we shouldn't."

The bigger earth bender grinned and moved towards Uncle and I, but two men that were in the bar moved in front of the earth bender, blocking his path. The tavern erupts in chaos, all these bandits and scum wanting a get at the gold. I felt a pull at my arm and saw Uncle trying to lead me away. I followed him and the old man, as we make our escape out of the chaotic tavern.

As we ran out, I asked Uncle,

"What will happen to that Red haired girl if Azula gets her?"

My Uncle mulled over my words, I'm not sure if he was thinking about what I said or surprised by it.

"Well your sister is insane, so you never know. But she might make that girl a slave…" My heart clenched, resulting at myself frowning inwardly. I scowled at my worried self, if the rest of the Avatars weak group was captured, I wouldn't feel a thing. But this one exotic girl from my dreams, strangely made me feel different. Were the spirits playing with me? Because that dream was a strange dream. I knew her name… I shook my head of these strange thoughts and could feel Uncle wanted an explanation from my strange questions.

"Uncle, I heard the sand benders talking about capturing a red haired girl..."

He nodded his head in understanding but looked at me strangely.

"Not that I care." I added. But I couldn't help gulping, because I did care. And there was a sickening feeling that these were the spirits that were playing with my mind. As we ran away from the chaos, I schooled my features into my usual scowl, letting not one person know about my inner thoughts about a certain red haired girl.

**=*~`""`~*=**

**Hope you guys liked this chapter! It was fun to write! Not much happened but maybe you guys are guessing to why Deanis fell in that pool? **

**Thanks to these reviewers! I am so thankful!**

**HeatherStylinson: I know. U.U**

**WhisperingShadow: Lol Maybe? I am excited you are enjoying this!**

**Rouseymousey65: Me too! I watched the second season of Young Justice and am hoping to make them develop into a relationship like Martian girl and Beast boy!**

**Axel100: First, I am going to respond to your review, although I do have questions about one of them.**

**Your review about the terms being foreign to the group is a great one, especially since it has gotten me to think more about my story. This story was just supposed to be a joke for my benefit and I never really thought that people would actually enjoy it. But since people are actually taking their time to read my story, I am going to go back through my older chapters and edit them. **

**Can you give me some examples of red flags that Deanis would've been setting off? **

**Now, the review about the gigantor comment, I had not a clue that there was an anime with the name Gigantor. I obviously haven't really thought about the slang terms that are being thrown around in this fanfic. Although, I can say it's in a whole different universe. I remember reading through the transcript, and surprisingly, I don't remember where, I saw the word "cool". Maybe I am just imagining it, but I remember that changing my mind about the caution of choosing my words wisely. **

**And last question, what do you mean cringe at my description of artillery? Like a good cringe or a bad cringe?**

**Tkb0: I agree it is unrealistic, but she also has shitty parents in my opinion. Although she could have much worse, considering she wasn't beaten or poor. She also didn't have many friends in her world.**

**AvatarLover: I enjoyed reading your thoughts, and is making me think a lot about this conversation. **

**You're wondering why they keep this girl around. Well, they know she is from another world, considering she has a different aura. Can you picture Aang to leave something that the spirits are meddling with behind? All by herself in this new world? I can't imagine Katara doing that either. They're very caring people, and I can't imagine them leaving behind someone who is trying to help.**

**I didn't realize she was treating them like crap, I was trying to write her off as a hard ass, someone who jokes with them. She doesn't mean most of the quips she tells them. **

**Well, she grew up independently, somewhat. She wasn't really around normal kids, she grew up as a rich child. She is going to be like that, she doesn't realize that in the Avatars world, she is nothing but someone who Azula wants to kill for thinking she is better. **

**She has no depth, which I'm going to work on. But I think that she is hiding the fact that she is really, insecure. She is a teenage girl, who thinks she's ugly, not cared for, and is weak among the gang. She is acting like that for a reason. I mean, I think it's good that there is people who don't like her at all, means she's got some annoying characteristics. I mean, I would be annoyed by someone who constantly had to add their thoughts about something. **

**I think this new journey as a slave in the Avatar world, and without the group will add a new light to her thoughts. I am not going to make a character who is sad all the time, or angsty, because it annoys me honestly. **

**I really liked your review, thank you so much! It honestly makes me think! **

**Thank you so much for all your thoughts and taking time out of your day to ask me these questions. **


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